WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam Review

By Jason Maxfield

Manufacturer: WiMiUs
Product Name: 4K Ultra HD Action Cam L1
EAN: 6886871349394
Price As Tested: $72.99 (Amazon)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by WiMiUs

WiMiUs, a company based out of Shenzhen, China, has sent Benchmark Reviews one of their 4K action cams for us to review. This is the WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam, somewhat similar to a GoPro Hero Session in size, but around half the price.

The L1 is a step up from WiMiUs’ Q series of cameras. There is a host of features including a waterproof case to 30 meters, slow motion and time lapse, burst shooting mode, and Wi-Fi connectivity allowing you to control your camera with your iPhone or Android device.

WiMiUs’ lineup is a bit confusing with so many cameras to choose from. The L1 and L2 are priced higher than the Q series of cams leading me to believe this is their higher end offering. For example, the WiMiUs Q1 is a 4K camera as well, which is currently priced for $39.99, while the top end Q6 is $55.99 on Amazon.

In this article for Benchmark Reviews I’ll be putting the 4K Ultra HD Action Cam L1 to the test. Is the L1 worth a look, let’s find out!

Features & Specifications

Video

Video Resolution 4K 24fps / 2K 30fps / 1080p 60fps / 1080p 30fps / 720p 120fps
Time-lapse 1 / 2/ 5 / 10 / 30 / 60
Loop Recording 3 / 5 / 10 min
Car Mode Support
Video Format MP4
Aerial FPV Support

Photos

Photo Resolution 20M / 16M / 14M / 12M / 10M / 8M / 5M
Self-timer 2 / 5 / 10 / 20 seconds
Photo Burst 3 / 5 / 10 frames per shooting
Exposure -2 to +2
Gyro RSC Support
Anti Shacking Support
Fish Eye Adjust Support

Power

Power 5v 1A
Battery 1000mAH
Recording Time 1080p / 90min
Charging Time About 2 hours

Hardware

Waterproof 30m underwater with waterproof case
LCD 2.0″ built-in LTPS
Lens 170° super-wide view
Connection WiFi (iOS & Android APP), Micro USB, HDMI
Storage MicroSD up to 64GB

Others

Weight Camera (58.3g), Camera with battery (81g)
Dimension 53.4*51.2*26.6(LxWxD)
Color Black, Silver
System Windows XP/Vista or above / Win7 / Mac OS
Language English / German / French / Spain / Chinese Traditional / Chinese Simplified / Russian / Japanese / Italian / Polish / Dutch / Portuguese

Product specifications taken from WiMiUs’ website

WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam Overview

With introductions taken care of we can move onto the fun stuff, un-boxing and taking a look at the WiMiUs L1 up close. The L1 comes packaged inside of the waterproof case. Inside the box you also get a ton of GoPro style accessories to mount the L1 just about anywhere. After removing the cam from the box and a quick release of the tension lever sets the cam free from it’s plastic housing for a closer inspection.

The front of the L1 is rather plain. You have the WiMiUs log and ‘4K’ stamped in blue, with the WiFi button and 3 LED lights that glow blue or red depending if the camera is on and recording or in charge mode, respectively.

On the right side of the L1, we have access to the USB, HDMI, and MicroSD slots. Just give it a little flip with your nail and it pops open.

The left side of the L1 gives you access to the battery compartment and you can see 3 tiny holes where the speaker resides.

At the back of the L1 we have the 2 inch LCD screen and the WiMiUs logo on the bottom edge of the camera.

The bottom of the L1 doesn’t have much going on. The rubberized grip is nice and prevents you from losing your grip on the cam. I wish they would of included a tri-pod mounting screw here, but with how small it is, there may not of been space for one. No worries though, there is a mounting bracket that fits the L1 allowing you to mount it to a tri-pod if you need to.

On the top of the L1 we have the power and record buttons. The LED indicator glows blue letting you know the L1 is powered on and ready to use. The 3 holes behind the LED are where the mic is housed.

WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam Detailed Features

Now we’ll take a more detailed look at the WiMiUs L1, starting with the accessories that come with the cam.

There is an assortment of mounts, straps, zip ties, and even double sided tape for various mounting requirements. Also included is a USB cord, lens cloth, manual, carrying bag, and 2 batteries.

Pulling the cover to the side you can see the mini USB and HDMI ports and the micro SD slot on the L1 camera.

This is where your batteries go. Aligning them is easily accomplished since you can see the 3 copper connectors inside the battery compartment.

A closer look at the battery. It’s a 3.7V Li-ion battery rated 1000mAh. The L1 includes 2 of these and you charge them using the USB cord while they are in the camera. I would like to see WiMiUs include an external charger so you can charge one battery while still making use of the camera.

I put the L1 back inside the waterproof case for a closer look at the housing. It appears you can replace the plastic lens part of the housing by removing the screws on the face-plate, but I’m not sure if WiMiUs sells replacements or not.

At the bottom there is a mounting bracket, which can be swapped out for others that come in the accessory kit.

The buttons on the housing work flawlessly to actuate the buttons on top of the L1 as if they were the actual buttons on the camera itself.

Testing & Results

Testing Methodology

Testing the WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam was simple enough. I took test footage while walking with the camera and while mounted on a tri-pod. I shot video in several resolutions and frames per second to test out many of the various recording modes.

I did test photo shooting modes and capabilities, and they worked fine. I focused on video recording, since this is what the L1 cam was made to do primarily. I have recorded samples showing my testing results. I also dunked the L1 cam into a bowl of water to test the waterproof case. I left it sitting that way for about 30 minutes and it didn’t leak. I live in the desert, so I didn’t have any place handy to test the L1 cam for water recordings.

Test System

Motherboard: MSI 870-G45
System Memory: G Skill 8GB 1600
Processor: Phenom II 965 BE @4GHz
Audio: On-board
Video: AMD XFX R9 390
Disk Drive 1: Samsung 850 Evo 500GB SSD
Disk Drive 2: Western Digital Black 750GB
Optical Drive: DVD burner
Enclosure: Thermaltake V51
PSU: EVGA Supernova G2 850W Gold
Monitor: Acer X223w 1680×1050
Operating System: Win10 Pro

Results

I shot some really nice footage of Joshua Tree Nation Park with the various different resolutions and FPS settings, but due to a malfunction of my micro SD card, that footage was lost. The videos I’m presenting here were facilitated by the need to replace that footage quickly for this article. Needless to say, I’m not very happy with the loss of the other videos, but the footage below works for this article.

I started out with a quick walk from my room to the outdoors while holding the WiMiUs L1 cam in my hand. First thing you will notice is the lack of volume in the recording. The internal mic is not very sensitive, nor is the quality of audio all that great.

The rest of the videos in this playlist are shot from a tripod. I shot footage of myself walking in front of the camera with resolutions ranging from 4K down to 720p. I did not include the 480p and lower resolutions, since this is a high resolution camera.

All the footage was uploaded directly to Youtube, without any post work. One of the first things I noticed was that the camera records 4K video in a 4:3 aspect ratio (2880×2160), and on playback you see the full 3840×2160 resolution. I’m assuming the camera uses anamorphic recording, much like how a DVD video is stored at 720×480 resolution then expanded to it’s proper display ratio during playback.

The other thing I noticed right away with the 4K video was all of the hot pixels in the dim light. Once outside the hot pixels seem to function correctly.

Frame rates are another interesting thing I noticed. When recording in 60 FPS mode for any of the resolutions that support it, it appears to be nothing more than 30 FPS doubled on playback. I confirmed this by importing footage into Photoshop as frames, and sure enough I had duplicate frames.

The only time it appeared the camera was actually recording 60 FPS was in 720p 120 FPS mode. As you’ll see in the video below, it’s much smoother, as you would expect 60 FPS or 120 FPS to look, but the quality degradation is very bad. Youtube does not support 120 FPS on playback at this time, but it’s clear the specs WiMiUs have given this cam are not entirely true. Sure you do get 60 FPS, but not in the true sense of it. 1080p and 720p recorded with 60 FPS are not truly recorded that way. It’s a shady way of listing the specs on the box that technically are true, but WiMiUs should know better, and anyone who thoroughly inspects the videos can plainly see this.

Moving along, I also shot video using the slow motion and time lapse features, and those functions worked as they should. The sky footage was done over 15 minutes with the camera interval to shoot a frame every second with playback set to 30 FPS. The slow motion shot was taken of passing cars out in front of my house and worked well.

Much of the testing I did was the video side of the WiMiUs L1. I did take some photos and try some of the other modes and they all seemed to work fine. Image quality is about the same as the videos below. Focus was put on the video recording aspects, because this is an action video camera, and I highly doubt most users are going to use it for photo shooting.

Lastly, when I tried to use the WiMiUs app on my Android smartphone, I was only able to connect to it a couple of times. The software seems buggy and crashed half the time even when I could connect. But once it was connected I could control the camera from my phone and the L1 did send the video feed to my phone. Most of the controls were not available on the app, which makes it less useful. I would like to see WiMiUs fix this and include all the options on the app so that you don’t have to go back into the camera to navigate, which is a bit tedious.

On the next page I will give my final thoughts and conclusion to the WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam.

Final Thoughts

It’s too bad the L1 camera doesn’t do very well in dim lighting, as it can double as a webcam. My sample had quite a few hot pixels while recording in dim light and I can’t say if this is normal or not for this model since I only have the one unit to review.

Navigating the menu of the L1 is a bit tedious. There is 7 pages to go through and using the WiFi button to scroll down with is fine, but if you miss the function you need, you have to press and hold the record button to back up. The record button also functions as your selection button.

Conclusion

I have to say I’m kind of disappointed with the WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam. It’s specs look impressive until you discover that they aren’t quite realistic and the performance you think you are getting isn’t really there. The image quality isn’t very good when you are in dim lighting, along with the hot pixels I encountered it makes watching the videos playback distracting. Keeping the WiMiUs L1 strictly outside, in bright daylight, seems your best bet for picture quality. And if you need a camera that actually shoots 60 FPS, I would look elsewhere.

Given it’s faults, and the cost of the WiMiUs L1 4K Action Cam some of the quality issues can be overlooked. But what I can’t overlook is when a company lists specs that the product does not actually meet! To me this is borderline fraud, and I being every much a consumer as anyone reading this article won’t put up with that from any company.

Performance of the L1 is spotty at best. Dim light performance is not very good and with this particular sample, hot pixels were a big problem. Things smooth out once in bright day light, but I can’t say if this is something that happens to all the models in this line.

The L1 is not much of a looker, which is fine. It just doesn’t seem to have that ‘wow’ factor to it. It’s simple design is functional without any bling.

One of the best things about the L1 is it’s construction. It’s fairly lightweight but feels sturdy in your hands. It has a rubberized feel to it, but it seems to be nothing but solid plastic with grooves to help you grip the camera without worry of it slipping from your grasp.

Functionality of the L1 is mixed for me. As I mentioned before the Android app had some issues, and is currently no longer working for me. I read this on a couple of forums and I haven’t found a solution yet. Another issue I have is with the recording frame rates and resolutions. 4K is anamorphic 4:3 2880×2160, which to me isn’t a representation of true 4K recording. Playback is indeed 3840×2160 and appears to be as detailed as you would expect of a 4K video, but since I do not own a 4K monitor, it’s hard to tell.

The reported recording frame rates are suspect to me as well. 60fps recording appears to be nothing but 30fps doubled. This is just not acceptable to me. If a product states it can record 60fps it better do just that. Technically there is 60fps on playback, it’s just not true 60fps recording that I have the issue with, and WiMiUs should change their specs on the L1 to reflect this.

WiMiUs has priced the L1 aggressively when compared to units like the GoPro Hero Session that are around $150 or so. The L1 is about half that price at the time of writing this article for $72.99 at Amazon.

In closing, I have to say WiMiUs has their work cut out for them. They are trying to nudge into a market with aggressive pricing and a product that is lacking because of it. Their product specs do not align with what you actually get.

I can’t recommend this product as it is currently. WiMiUs needs to change their product specifications and work on quality control. If I had bought this unit, I would of sent it back for a refund because of all the hot pixels I dealt with during my testing of this product.

Pros:

+ Lightweight
+ Easy to use
+ Tons of accessories
+ Two batteries included

Cons:

– Hot pixels in dim light
– no true 60 fps recording mode
– 4K video is anamorphic
– Android app is buggy

Ratings:

Performance: 6.5
Appearance: 8.75
Construction: 9.5
Functionality: 6
Value: 7.75

Final Score: 7.7 out of 10.

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