The Xiaomi Yi also has some community and collections of simple startup scripts to modify the camera's capabilities simply by placing a file on the MicroSD card. For example: shooting 1600x1200(4:3) video, or adjusting noise reduction etc..
Thanks. I bought a GoPro as a gift a year or so back, and thought about buying one for myself at the same time. I didn't, but I'm seriously considering a Xiaomi Yi after seeing these links. In China, it costs 61 USD.
Oh, wow, thanks for the links. I tried the denoise reduction hack. It turns out the camera performs massive amounts of denoise - and of course the result is that the image is a bit softer than it should be.
I turned denoise down to 1024, and the image is quite a bit sharper; that's great! There's a bit of noise visible now in low light (whereas before it was squeaky-clean), but it's comparable to my handheld camcorder, which is okay. I think they just made the decision that they don't want to show any noise, no matter what, and that impacted image sharpness out of the box.
I can't wait to test it under normal daylight. Also, the focus to infinity hack - since the camera appears to be optimally focused on a closer range.