Mobility Digest Review: Magnetic / Detachable Wide Angle + Macro Lens for Cellphone Etc

Cameras on our phones have come a long way haven’t they? You can almost use your cell camera in place of a regular point and shoot camera. Some phone cameras are good enough to do that, but not many. Personally I don’t take many pictures with my phone, it’s nice for something quick or if I forgot my camera, but other than that I rarely use the camera in my phone. If you’re a shutterbug with your phone though you might like the product I have for review today from USBFever, it’s a lens set that includes both Macro and Wide Angle Lenses for you phone. It’s magnetic so it just attaches to your phone and then can be stored away until future use. It’s not a bad little gadget actually, read on..

Author:  Kristofer Brozio

Vendor: USBFever

Price: $16.99

Overall Rating: 4/5

Specs/Features:

Magnetic / Detachable Wide Angle + Macro Lens for iPhone / iPod Nano 5th / Cellphone / Kodak Zi8

Features:
– Portable and detachable, you can take photo with your device at any time
– You can use this conversion lens to make the wide angle shots as 0.68X
– High Clarity: Made of high-class glass
– Strong: Made of top-grade Aluminuim
– Applicable to any devices

How to attach the Lens to your device?
– Mangetic
– Magnetic thru a ring with self-adhesive tape

How to use?
– if you device is Magnetic, then it will be very simple, just put the lens directly ahead of your built-in lens, then you will get what you want.
– Otherwise, you can use self-adhesive ring (included) to stick a magnetic ring in front of your built-in lens (to make it magnetizable) then put the lens on the add-on ring
– You can change among our Wide Angle Lens, Fish Eye Lens and Marco Lens for your specific purpose
– You can use this conversion lens to make the wide angle shots as 0.68X
– All the wide conversion lenses marked MACRO can separate into 2 parts, remove (unscrew) the MARCO part from the main barrel of wide conversion lens so that you can use it as a separate Marco lens.
– Wide Angle lens will increase about 40% view range so you can take picture of large ranges, such as group of people, buildings and landscape. With this macro lens, can be taken picture of a tiny object clearly in the detail.  (The shot distance is between 10~23mm)

Specifications (Wide Angle):
– Magnification: Wide 0.68X + Super Macro
– Lens Construction: 2 elements in 2 groups
– The shot distance is between 10~23mm
– Dimensions(main body): 20mm (diameter) x 11.2mm (length)
– Dimensions (magnetic ring): 13.06 (outer), 9.38 (inner)
– Weight: 4.2g

Specifications (Marco):
– Magnification: Super Macro
– Lens Construction: 1 element in 1 group
– The shot distance is between 10~23mm
– Dimensions(main body): 15.8mm (diameter) x 6.5mm (length)
– Dimensions (magnetic ring): 13.06 (outer), 9.38 (inner)
– Weight: 2g

What’s in the Box?

There’s no box, just a plastic package:

Inside the package you’ll find two rings with adhesive on one side, the lenses, lens cover for top and a cover for the bottom with strap on it.

The lens is very small and it’s made of aluminum, overall it seems well made.

The lenses screw apart so you can use either the macro or wide angle.

Here’s the lens with the covers in place:

 

Impressions / Review:

To actually use the lanes with your phone or mp3 player you’ll need to attach the metal rings. The lenses are magnetic and they stick the the rings. I attached them to my HTC Surround and my Samsung Captivate.

You have to take the cases off of course to attach the rings. I have a hard case on my HTC Surround and found I couldn’t put the case back on with the ring in place. If I had a silicone case I’m sure that wouldn’t have been a problem. On my Captivate I have an Otterbox Commuter case that is both plastic and silicone rubber. When I put the case back on with the ring in place it seems it have fit fine, but the ring moved a bit. With the case on though you can’t use the lens anyway, you’ll have to remove the phone from the case to use the lenses. On my Captivate I also have a full skin covering the entire phone, when I removed the ring I found that it left a lot of residue on the skin. The HTC Surround though doesn’t have a skin and it’s just the metal around the camera lens, the ring came off fairly easy with very little residue left.

My sim card was in my Captivate so I used that for the sample pictures.

First is the macro lens, it lets you get very close to the object you’re photographing.

Here’s the closest I could get with the camera set on macro, the closest with it being in focus is what I mean.

Now here it is with the macro lens attached:

I’d say not bad at all really, you can get very close and make out some nice details.

Next is the wide angle lens.

I took these two pictures from the same distance, the first is without the wide angle lens and then with the lens in place.

Obviously the wide angle lens gives you more of a viewing angle as you can see.

Conclusion:

So the lenses work, and they seem to work well. Not bad I guess if you like to take a lot of pictures with your camera phone.

The problem I have is that you really can’t use a case with the rings. It depends on the type of case. You also can’t use the lenses with a case on your phone at all.

 

Pros:
+Small and portable
+Really works
+Includes two rings for two devices

 

Cons:
-Rings don’t really fit with hard cases
-Ring adhesive can leave residue