HDMI Field Monitor Review

by Sebastian WöberFebruary 25^th, 2010

Battery

If battery life is important for you you will find in this chapter that there are a lot of differences between these monitors.

One of the things I noticed was that the ikan V5600 and the smallHD DP-1 would suck your battery even though the screen is turned off. You have to remove the physical connection between the battery and the connectors to avoid that.

I tested the battery on all devices in the same manner. Had the monitor connected via hdmi and the camera constantly in video mode moving it around to bright or dark areas from time to time.

smallHD DP-1

The smallHD DP-1 comes with 2 batteries in the bundle. Opinion: That’s nice! A second battery is always a good idea.

The battery connects via a small cable to the device. It’s locked in by two plastic brackets that you can also take off. The battery doesn’t sit very tight but I realized it could only fall off with a really heavy shake, so I’d say it’s just tight enough.

Battery lasted for: 2 hours 16 minutes
Battery loading time: 2 hours
Battery Type: 12V 26 watt-hours (I suppose that’s 2200 mAh)

ikan V8000

The ikan’s use camcorder batteries. That’s actually a good idea, cause there are a lot of these available everywhre on the world and usually they are quite price efficient.

The one ikan sent me was a BP-950G, the kind that came with the Canon XH-A1 cameras. It locks in at the back, you need a lot of force to put it in. Opinion: I think you need too much force. It’s good that this battery will never every fall out, but this was a struggle for me very time.

Battery lasted for: 1 hour 30 minutes
Battery loading time: 2 hours
Battery Type: 7.4V 5200mAh

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