Canon PowerShot V10 review: Unboxing & First Impressions

Finally my prayers have been answered — there’s a new tech product on the market that is absolutely essential for vloggers.

With the wave of user generated video content on social media, a compact and user-friendly camera is essential to a vloggers tool kit.

You need something that’s pocketable, shoots high quality video, has a flip-up screen (so you can see yourself), good battery life and is easy to use.

And excitingly, all of these features seem to be present in Canon’s new Powershot V10 camera, which was specifically designed for vloggers and content creation.

Elly Awesome reviews the Canon PowerShot V10. Picture: Elly Awesome

Unboxing

As someone who’s grown their profile as a content creator over the past 10 years, I was not only incredibly excited for this product, but I also feel I’m the perfect person to review it.

I’ve been begging companies to produce something like this for years, and it’s finally here.

In the box you get the camera, a USB-C to USB-C charging cable and a small wrist strap. But what’s more exciting is the V10 itself.

It’s small, still a little heavier than a phone, but designed thoughtfully when it comes to buttons, software, and its addition of a built-in kickstand.

I repeat - a built-in kickstand! This has to be one of my favourite parts about the camera.

Of course, it can attach to a typical tripod (excellent), but you can also stand it up on most surfaces if you don’t have one with you.

This is something that almost no cameras have, and if you try and place any traditional camera on a surface your shot will never be level with the horizon or framed correctly.

And this is an adjustable kickstand so you can actually have some flexibility when framing a shot, without anyone’s help. I love this.

The built in microphones were incredibly impressive on this camera. Picture: Elly Awesome

Features and Video Quality

Next, the small flip up screen is also awesome.

It’s easy enough to see outdoors in bright light and just big enough to frame up your shot, whether you’re vlogging or recording what’s in front of you.

And you can record up to 4K UHD 30p, which is important because 4K is essentially the video resolution standard now.

The footage out of the Powershot V10 seems to resemble the video quality of the highly acclaimed Canon G7X series, which has become a popular pocket camera for everyday users and content creators.

However, I’ve seen some critiques from people who think the quality is not up to par with competing small action cameras.

The V10 does only house a 1-inch CMOS sensor, which is similar to that of an iPhone, so I do I think could be improved upon.

However, I thought the video quality had a better depth of field, gave off blurrier backgrounds and had a ‘professional camera quality look’ compared to footage from my iPhone.

And that kind of ‘high quality camera footage’ look is the only reason I’d use something like this over the convenience of my phone.

With the wave of user generated video content on social media, a compact and user-friendly camera is essential to a vloggers tool kit. Picture: Elly Awesome

Audio Quality

The built in microphones were incredibly impressive on this camera, in fact I had a few funny comments that the audio quality is even better than the video quality.

The microphone placement is also perfect.

Additionally, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll cover them with your hands while filming, which is a common accident on other poorly designed cameras.

There’s also the ability to plug in an external microphone but seemingly no way to mount it onto the camera without using some kind of additional camera cage rig.

However, after all the compliments on audio quality I’ve received, for once, I don’t think I need one.

This is a big plus for creators as often an external plug in microphone is a must because all small and pocketable cameras are known to have generally terrible in-built microphones.

So huge thumbs up from me here.

Drawbacks

The only real drawback I had with this camera is that you can only record 4K video for up to 40 to 60 minutes at a time, before the camera tends to overheat and have to be turned off for a while.

This probably sounds like a major drawback but it wasn’t an issue for me personally when I was testing it out, and capturing footage in short stints.

However, if you wanted to purchase this camera for shooting long time lapses, or for talking-head videos where you speak to the camera for long chunks of time you may struggle with this.

Unfortunately, this 4K-overheating issue is something that’s quite common with these pocketable cameras in this niche and I’m really hoping this can soon be improved upon.

The battery life on the other hand kept up with me and was enough for me to use it off and on for a few days at a time, which is good considering it’s rechargeable and does not have interchangeable batteries.

Should you buy it

At $699 I think this is a reasonable cost for a vlog camera, especially considering my next choice would likely be something like a Canon G7X, if I’m avoiding carrying a large, heavy camera with interchangeable lenses but I want that ‘quality camera look’.

I would, however, love to see it sneak under $500, where I think it would have a better chance at dominating the market as the first choice for content creators.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawesometech | YouTube

Originally published as Canon PowerShot V10 review: Unboxing & First Impressions