For parents looking for the best in handheld color video monitors, Summer Infant’s ‘Best View’ Handheld Color Video Monitor is it. It’s not only 100{68a24ae24d585d838fd4abc95ab00a641ba590bf7711538736b428115f84eb9f} digital, providing a clear and secure transmission, but it looks and works great and has a 2.5″ color display screen with pan, scan and zoom camera options to get the best view of baby.
$ 99.00
EVERY PARENT NEEDS THIS PRODUCT TO PREVENT SIDS,
3l Best View Summer Infant Pan/scan Baby Monitor Redesign
The reason I gave Summer’s Best View Monitor 5 stars was because I couldn’t give it 10! I ordered this product for my wife after our 6-month-old son was twice found lying on his stomach, near-face-down. I cannot emphasize enough how completely satisfied we are with this product. After reading the 2 negative comments (one complained the monitor did not work when on battery power, and the other thought the picture was too grainy when used in a dark room in the middle of the night – you’ve got to be kidding!!!) I can assure you the quality of this $179 product is better than my $20,000 night vision goggles provided me by the National Guard. If you’re expecting this to look like your 60″ High Definition Flat Screen TV in your living room then yes, you’re going to be disappointed. My wife and I absolutely LOVE this product and I cannot emphasize enough the peace-of-mind it has given us. I know because my brother died of SIDS, and the emotional scar it left on my mother is not something I would wish on anyone. Our son’s bedroom is pitch-dark at night, and this camera makes it appear as though there is a spotlight shining on him – his face is that clear and bright (isn’t technology great!!). After a few nights using the 2.5″ hand-held screen, we wanted to experiment with the Audio-Video jacks provided so we plugged them into our 32″ HD Flat Screen TV in our bedroom. Well… let me tell you…. this is the cat’s meow!!! Now either my wife or I can simply open our eyes and immediately enjoy an absolutely incredible image of our son at rest (and can hear him over the TV as well) – it doesn’t get better than this!!!!
Thank you Summer for such an outstanding product that helps parents everywhere prevent SIDS with such a high-quality monitoring system as this.
(Comments added 4/23/11)
RECORD YOUR CHILD PLAYING IN THEIR CRIB!!!
How ironic that I ended my initial review above with the words “It doesn’t get better than this!!!”. I can now tell you it does get better. After watching our son on our bedroom TV one morning as he was playing, my wife made the comment “It’s too bad we couldn’t have this recorded”. I immediately went and took our DVD recorder and plugged the audio/video jacks from the monitor into the DVD recorder, and then back out to the TV, and wah-lah… we now record these precious moments for posterity. It is absolutely priceless to now record these before-unseen moments as he plays in the morning sun after waking. We have now recorded him learning to activate the carousel by himself as he struggled until he finally achieved his goal. Thanks Summer for thinking ahead to add the audio/video jacks to this great product.
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|BAD BAD BAD screen!,
First of all, I’ve tried 3 different baby monitors with the screen. What I expected/wanted from the baby monitors are these:
1) Good quality of the screen so I can see my baby (even breathing: chest going up and down at night)
2) Easy of use (I just hate anything that is a pain to use)
3) Camera pan/zoom option (My baby moves around and I like having camera close to him, so this is a really good feature to have)
So, let me explain how those three monitors performed.
First one is Motorola Digital Video Baby Monitor with 3.5 Inch Color LCD Screen (At Amazon regular price: 229.99)
This one is the winner. It has a good picture quality, zoom in, is really easy to use. That’s it. It satisfied all those three categories. Other feature I also liked but not necessary are,, talk back, lullaby (well, kinda useless for my baby). I wish it was made with a little better quality plastic (compared to other two I’ve tried) and wish it had clock on the screen, which is very helpful at night when the baby wakes up! One thing I noticed though, was that battery of parent unit goes out SO QUICK when it is not plugged in, and use rechargeable battery.
Second one is Samsung Wireless Video Security Monitoring System w/ 3.5″ LCD (At Amazon regular price: 179)
This one,, sigh… I really wanted to love it… I always trust Samsung quality. and YES, it comes up to that quality standard (both physical material that is made out of, and some great added features) that I look for. BUT there are a few cons that I just could not live with.
First of all, this one is LOADED with FEATURES. It has the best quality screen (almost like a digital camera! which is very impressive for a baby monitor! Both day and night time, it showed consistent great quality), talk back, Date/Time, viewable from the computer, etc etc… Just a lot!
However what threw me off was that vibration/beep when the parents unit wakes up from the sleep mode. Basically this thing goes to sleep when the baby does not make a sound or makes a sound that’s not too alarming. It is trying to give parents some time to sleep unless baby cries so much. HOWEVER, I noticed that it did not pick up small cries that I also wanted to hear. And that VIOLENT vibration would just startle me every time the unit wakes itself from the sleep mode. I almost had heart attack every time it did it. I mean it is VIOLENT vibration. It is way too powerful and hear this, you can not control it, nor you can turn it off. You can either choose between vibration or loud beep, which is also annoying. I guess they did not test this out themselves. If they had a baby, they would know that just sound of a baby crying will wake parents up.
Another thing that made me return this unit: lack of zoom and pan feature. OK. I should have read before purchasing this one, but so sad it did not have this feature, while having all other useless ones?! weird.
The Last thing I wanna point out on this: freaking annoying to go around the menu and hard to use! This thing is loaded with features (a lot of not so necessary) and but failed to organize it successfully under the menu. Also, it has way too many buttons around the parents unit that I do not think are the “most-used” buttons for parents. Once again, did they really test this thing with real parents with real babies?!! It’s like having a cell phone, trying to figure out where/what category the feature I want to use might be hidden under. A lot of them were where it did not make sense to me. Basically, very annoying to use.
Third one is Summer Infant Best View Handheld Color Video Monitor (At Amazon regular price: 199.99)
I had a high hope for this one, as I heard good things about Summer Infant baby monitors. I will make it short. It has the best “Ease of use” amongst all three. The parents unit had buttons (shapes and placements) that made most sense out of three I’ve tried. Plastic (or any other material that were used) quality was great. It does not have bells and whistles as other ones, such as talk back, lullaby, etc etc. It also has zoom in/panning feature that is very helpful.
BUT, this is why I returned this thing: the BAD, BAD, I mean BAAAAAAAAAAAD screen quality, especially at night. It made my baby look like those “ghost pictures” people take. Like those grainy pictures that people claim that they have captured the ghost in the picture… Get what I mean? It is super grainy I could not recognize my own baby’s face! My baby’s face filled up the whole screen (I’m saying this to say that I did not have the camera far from my baby) but still I had to guess, oh those two black blobs would be his eyes.. and another one below them is his nose?? no,, mouth??? Yes, basically, if you are looking for a baby monitor with a screen, why would you waste money on a screen that is useless? Move onto other monitors.
Finally,…
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|Far inferior to the previous generation,
I owned the previous generation of this monitor from Amazon and used it for about a month before the screen on the monitor developed a green static over the transmitted image. I called Summer Infant and they agreed to replace the system. A few weeks later, the “new and improved” generation of the best view monitor arrived. I immediately noticed the difference in the quality of the video. The old generation’s night vision image was crisp and relatively clear, while this monitor’s night vision is grainy and fuzzy. The sound on this new monitor also cuts in and out, at times for a few seconds. I do not recall ever having an issue with the sound on the old version. If you are trying to decide between the old and the new version, I strongly recommend going with the older model.
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