Elephone Ele Explorer

There are some companies that become synonyms for product categories: Hoover, Fitbit and GoPro to name but three. The latter is certainly the bestknown and most successful action cam maker, but there are plenty of cheaper options, even if most of them are similar to the GoPro.

Design

Priced £68, the Ele Explorer certainly appears to be a bargain. It has built-in Wi-Fi, a 2in colour screen (320x240 pixels), and supports 4K video recording.

However, scratch the surface and you’ll see that the latter specification is simply there to tick a box. In reality, the mode is unusable for action: it records 3840x2160 at only at 15 frames per second (fps). That’s cheating in our book as you need a minimum of 25fps for smooth video.

Elephone’s website doesn’t specify which sensor is used in the Explorer, but there’s a good chance there’s some interpolation going on. Our review model was supplied by Phonect, and it quotes a 16Mp OV4689 sensor, but this is actually a 4Mp chip – half the resolution needed for true 4K. The good news is that it records 1080p at 60fps, which is better than a Hero3. Only the Hero3+ matches this mode and that costs around £200 now.

The Explorer also has other shooting modes, such as looped recording which means you can use it as a dash cam where it will automatically create a new video file every two-, three- or five minutes.

In the box you get the usual selection of mounts and accessories, including helmet, tripod mount and handlebar mounts, straight and 90-degree adaptors, and both waterproof and non-waterproof housings. They’re all GoPro compatible, so if you need something like a suction mount to hang it from your windscreen it’s easy to find one online. Quality is a step down from what you’ll get with genuine GoPro mounts – a couple of the extensions had poorly made nuts that we couldn’t tighten them up: the thread wasn’t properly cut.

In terms of design, the Elephone Explorer follows GoPro’s lead and has roughly the same dimensions: 59x41x30mm. Don’t assume it will fit into GoPro housings, though. There’s an extra millimetre here or there and different button locations.

If anything, the Explorer is an SJCAM clone: it has the same arrangement of Micro-USB, Micro-HDMI and microSD on one side, and two buttons on the other (SJCAMs usually have three). Even the batteries are interchangeable between the two manufacturers. The buttons on the side act as up-down buttons in the menus, and double as Wi-Fi on/off and sound on/off.

The latter is problematic, as it’s all too easy to press the button when holding the camera to record (even in the waterproof case) and mute the microphone. An on-screen icon shows whether the mic is muted or not, but it’s easy to miss and we ended up with several silent videos. We’d like a menu option to disable this function.

On the front you’ll find a power/mode button but no LED indicators. This could be to avoid glare being recorded through the lens – especially at night – but it means you can’t immediately see if it’s recording or not from the front. In fact, the only indication that it’s recording is a tiny flashing blue LED on the back – it would be far better to have large LEDs on all sides as GoPro does (and the option to disable one or all of them).

Another issue is the lack of audio feedback, something that’s key when you can’t see the camera at all (such as when it’s stuck on your head). You can enable a click sound, but it’s the same for starting and stopping recording and, regardless, you can’t hear it when it’s inside the waterproof case. Certainly something that needs to be addressed in a firmware update.

Menus are sensibly arranged and are easy to navigate. There aren’t too many options, and you can also download the Ele Cam app for iOS or Android, which makes it very easy to see and change settings.

The app also gives you a remote live feed from the camera and allows you to start and stop recording, change modes and review footage. In our testing of the iOS app, we experienced frequent crashes and the remote viewing – at least of the 1080p60 footage we shot – simply didn’t work. It would play a second