Canon Legria Mini X review

The Legria Mini X’s lens has an f/2.8 aperture and 160-degree field-of-view in video mode, expanding to 170-degrees when shooting still images. It records 24Mbps AVCHD video at 1080p/25p resolution, although we found videos to be slightly soft with a considerable amount of purple fringing between the high contrast areas such as buildings against sky. There was also some mosquito noise. Indoors, where the Legria Mini X is arguably most likely to be used, there was a lot of noise in the shadow details.

The 160-degree wide-angle lens also introduces a lot of barrel distortion, meaning those closest to the camera aren’t presented in the most attractive way. Zooming in corrects the barrel distortion, but there’s only one zoom level and this uses digital zoom so you sacrifice some image quality. The Legria Mini X can also capture 12-megapixel still images, but without ample light these appear noisy. 

 ^Best viewed full screen and in 1080p

Battery life was excellent, however; shooting 1080p MP4 video and AAC audio lasted two hours and 52 minutes on a single charge.

The twin stereo microphones can capture Linear PCM audio. This is important for anyone that values audio fidelity, as it’s completely lossless. Linear PCM audio is only available when you record in AVCHD mode and results in large video sizes, however, so you’ll need to invest in a sizable SD card. There’s no built-in storage, and no memory card included in the box either. The microphones have integrated windshields to cut down on unwanted noise, and there are also 3.5mm mic and headpone jacks for connecting an external microphone and monitoring levels. 

Microphone sensitivity was impressive; shooting from our roof to capture the ambient sounds of London traffic and construction, it was able to pick up even the faintest sounds from a large distance. Directionality was great too, with sound following the direction of the camera. You can also apply different audio scenes including speech, noise suppression and meeting, with the latter clearly detecting multiple speakers.

^microphone test – the Canon Legria Mini X was able to capture the speaker’s voice clearly and you can even just about hear the other side of the call (excuse the awkward camera angle)

The Legria Mini X gets a lot of things right, particularly the articulating screen that makes it ideal for shooting selfie videos. The microphones are super sensitive and the audio captured is of high quality. However, video quality was disappointing and we preferred footage shot on the Sony HDR-MV1. As it stands, each camera has its pros and cons, so which is the best for you will be dependent on what you’ll mainly be filming.