The operating instructions that come with the device say that to turn the Pencam on you have to depress the button on the top of the pen for three seconds. On the unit I received if you should press the button for three seconds, the device will lock up showing the expected standby light, but when you press the button again to start recording or take a picture, it will do nothing. I found that a simple press and immediate release was what was required, not a three-second press.

As might be expected from what is a low-end device the image quality is just OK. This is because the lens is a pinhole so the image resolution is just adequate, while with fixed aperture and exposure you get poor performance under both very low and very bright lighting conditions. The sound quality is not too bad for such a small device.

Another issue was that for reasons I couldn't determine, I wound up with corrupted and unplayable videos a few times.

If I had been asked to design this device I'd have put the power on and video or still setting on the bezel around the start/stop button ... turn the button one way and it would be on and video, center off, and the other way on and still images. Oh, and how about an audio-only mode? Sure, all of that would have added a few more dollars to the price but it would have been a much better product to be able to select the mode easily rather than having to use multiple button presses. Alas, they didn't ask me.

Design recommendations and issues aside, at an RRP of $99 the Swann HD Pencam is amazingly cheap and gets, all things considered, a Gearhead rating of 3.5 out of 5.