With It’s Unboxed’s newly-acquired Sanyo Xacti CG10 pocket camcorder came a bit of a problem: The camera’s pistol grip form factor means it can’t exactly stand up on its own. An easy enough problem to solve, thanks to the FlexPod Gripper tripod.
This convenient and lightweight tripod not only has the ability to stand a camera up on level surfaces, but it can also grip various trees, lampposts, chairs, etc. for added versatility. While at first glance we didn’t believe this tripod was going to live up to its guarantee to hold small cameras and electronics upright, we discovered upon further testing that it’s a rather competent little tripod that holds its grip well enough for most devices.
Here’s a look at the $20 tripod It’s Unboxed found at the local Best Buy.
Here at It’s Unboxed we do online video. And we do it badly.
But thanks to a cross-country move and a broken camera, we haven’t even been able to do that in a long time. Now we’re back. And thanks goes in part to the Sanyo Xacti CG10 pocket camera Matt picked up on sale at Radio Shack for about $150.
The Sanyo Xacti CG10 is billed as a ‘Dual Camera,’ capable of both recording up to 720p HD video and shooting 10 megapixel still images. While it doesn’t have the audio line in of the Kodak Zi8, the ubiquity of the Flip Ultra HD or the whatever-it-is-about-the-Sony-Webbie-HD-that-makes-it-unique, the Xacti does come with a couple things those cameras don’t. What separates the Xacti from others in its class is its 5x optical zoom, large and bright 3-inch LCD swivel screen, flash for still images and lens cap. Rather than the wide grip of most pocket camcorders, this one features the pistol grip popularized over the years by Sanyo’s Xacti line. Also noteworthy is the build quality of the Xacti. It doesn’t feel like a cheap pocket camcorder; it’s got a good weight, the moving parts feel solid and there’s no creakiness in the plastic.
In short, the camera appears competent to handle years of bad unboxing videos.
Here’s a look at what we got, along with some sample footage shot using the Xacti.
Somewhere in the minds of the It’s Unboxed brain trust, a decision was made. A decision that it would be a fantastic idea to have a party and fry a bunch of random food items. But in order to pull this mission off, It’s Unboxed had to acquire a deep fryer.
Luckily Langley was on the scene, picking up a Euro Pro Kitchen deep fryer at Wal-Mart for somewhere in the vicinity of $35. A quick unboxing, a little, er, a lot of vegetable oil and some power and we were frying with the best of them. In our initial test run on some tater tots, we discovered the fryer worked well once we found and read the instructions we were so quick to toss aside. After some use, however, there appeared to be a problem with the magnetic power connector and we couldn’t keep the thing turned on.
Colorado is more than a home to It’s Unboxed global headquarters. In fact, we like to think of the Rocky Mountain region in general as the cradle of awesome tech culture life. And today, we welcome BumperTunes, a brand-new service that composes, records and licenses original music for any number of new media (podcasts, videos, TV, unboxing videos).
But wait – there’s more!
Calvin and Kit over at BumperTunes were so kind as to submit an unboxing of some stickers they ordered through Sticker Giant, and they even gave us a preview of what they do by adding some original BumperTunes on the edges of the video you should be watching right now.
Congrats on the succesful launch of your site, BumperTunes!
You can’t keep a good zombie down. Well, so say the makers of Whack-A-Zombie, a pint-sized version of those classic inflatable punching bags. The It’s Unboxed crew likes a good dose of undead movie madness, and was hoping this trinket would be a good way to reenact some of our favorite scenes from those classic George A. Romero films, or at the very least, watch the inflated zombie bounce back faster than one of Danny Boyle’s infected.
It’s Unboxed would be little more than a poorly-written product blog if it weren’t for the magic of digital video. And we wouldn’t have nearly as much content if it weren’t for the support of our friends unboxing stuff on video on our behalf. Yes, digital video and audience-submitted content are two of our favorite things. To celebrate this, here’s a video Kit and Cori filmed during a recent Denver podcasting event of the now ubiquitous Flip Ultra HD pocket camcorder and accessory pack.
We hope you enjoy watching this viewer-submitted video unboxing of a video recorder as much as we enjoyed writing this sentence. Be sure to check out more of Cori’s videos here, and check future episodes as we unbox something from Kit’s new business.
