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35 of 38 found the following review helpful:
BAD BAD BAD screen! Sep 11, 2011
By JungEun Kim
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, after using three, I realized that Motorolla had to be the winner, and I've been using it over a month and very pleased with it. Hope my review helped.
43 of 48 found the following review helpful:
 EVERY PARENT NEEDS THIS PRODUCT TO PREVENT SIDS Apr 16, 2011
By D. Demro
"Vietnam War and WWII historian"
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.
12 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 Far inferior to the previous generation May 25, 2011
By RobinRo
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.
10 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 Beware of Summer Infant Customer Service if your monitor has problems!! Aug 14, 2011
By Melacee
I've owned the previous BestView monitor for 10 months and in the last couple of months the battery lost the ability to hold the charge and the charger would not charge consistently. When I called Summer (after being on hold for 45 min) the Customer Service Rep sent me new batteries which took 2 weeks to receive. The new batteries made no difference so I called Summer again (on hold for 38 mins) and the Customer Service Rep said she would send me the new and improved monitor. She said the turn around time would be ONE week. I carefully packed up the monitor and sent it back via UPS- I have no idea WHY but it took 6 business days for Summer to receive my package. I waited for 4 days and wondered why I still had not received the NEW monitor. I called Summer again and waited for 40 minutes and the rep said she could see that their Summer Infant warehouse received my old monitor but the new one had not been shipped out. She told me she would email them and request that it was sent out that day. I waited 2 more days and called back to see if they had a tracking number. Again after an absurd wait on the phone the rep told me it had not been sent out but would notify their warehouse to send it out. She said she would email me a tracking number as soon as it had been shipped out. Again I waited for 2 days and still no email and no phone call. Very very frustrating! I called back and the rep said she could not get a hold of the warehouse. I told her to send one out from the United States and she agreed and her manager said it could be express. She said she would email me a tracking number. She did not. I had to call back and again wait for an absurd amount of time. She gave me the tracking number. The new monitor took 5 business days to arrive. The total turnaround time for this fiasco was 3 weeks. I am furious!
The run around I got from Summer Infant's customer service department is absolutely IRRESPONSIBLE and Unacceptable. Not only did they not DO as they said they would, they held no regard that I had to call and follow up every couple of days. As a new parent, I wasted WAY too much time on hold and dealing with this situation. I bet if I did not follow up with them, I would still not have a monitor. Almost $200 dollars down the drain!
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Terrible units that stop working in a year Jan 04, 2012
By vpat78
I strongly would recommend anyone looking at any product made by Summer Infant to look elsewhere. We had purchased the older version of this unit a couple years back and right around the 12 month mark when the warranty ends, it completely stopped working. We called Summer Infant and they agreed to replace it at no charge - we were happy. Now with the second unit (still the original or prior version), it has now pretty much become useless as it does not receive a signal further than say 15 feet. We originally called them at the 13 month mark (beyond warranty of 12 months) and they told us that it's because of something in our house. So knowing that nothing as changed in our house as far as any new electronics or anything else that could potentialy interfere, we decided to unplug all wireless devices one day to see if in fact something was now interferring with the unit - nothing! So then we tried it out at a friend's house and the same result, the unit was useless outside of 10-15 feet. I called Summer Infant back and this time they did not offer any solution other than a "loyalty" discount on the current new version for $109. Loyalty? I think not after having gone through 2 of their units and seeing the countless negative reviews on the current model. We are going to purchase another infant monitor unit but it won't be one that is by this company...
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