Review on KSQ Smartphone Recording Compatible Streaming by Ryuta Marantz

NOTE: This item was obtained free from Vine, this "kit" is intended primarily as a tripod for those rare occasions when I'm using my phone for a Zoom meeting. I liked the backlit idea; The mic was a nice touch, but since I have an iPhone I wasn't planning on using it anyway. This part works reasonably well as a stand-alone tripod, but the workmanship leaves a lot to be desired. It is completely unsuitable as a selfie stick. BUILD QUALITY: This thing is just poorly put together, plain and simple. Everything is plastic except for a couple of screws holding the two main parts together, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, except that it's quite thin. Nothing about the tripod feels well-built, and it feels like the slightest effort could break something. The actual phone mount has an adjustable side arm that is fairly snug and exerts a lot of force, so once it "snaps" the phone is relatively secure. Unfortunately, the actual hinge that holds the mount to the rest of the tripod/pole body is absolute junk and doesn't support the weight of my phone (iPhone 11 Pro Max). This is less of an issue when used in "tripod mode" but completely destroys the usefulness of "selfie stick" mode. Unless you have a very small/light phone, good luck with this thing holding your phone with some degree of stability. The slightest movement caused the loop to move, eventually causing the phone to point straight down given just enough time. For a "blogger" or "YouTuber" this is completely counterproductive. This kit also includes a rectangular LED light and a microphone with the included 3.5mm cable. I haven't tested the latter because I don't need it. To be honest, if you're using an external mic to record video, you probably have something a lot nicer than what I consider an extremely poor quality mic, and I suspect the iPhone's built-in mic is probably a lot better. However, this is an option. The lighting is very disappointing. It is powered by 2 AA batteries - for real use on the go I think that would be a plus as the battery takes some time to recharge. The flashlight itself seems pretty cheap and I was so disappointed with the rest of the product that I didn't test it. There are two "cold shoe" on the sides of the phone mount for attaching a microphone and lighting. Like the rest of the item, they are plastic and hold everything in place pretty poorly. The fit is pretty poor, and even when I hand-tightened them as best I could, fairly quick movements resulted in the lights, mic, or both detaching from their mounts. Again, this isn't a problem in "tripod mode", but it's totally unacceptable in "stick mode". For the price listed by the seller ($50 at the time of writing this article), the build quality is complete. unacceptable. Much better would be to buy a small selfie stick and a small tripod for the same price and just transfer the phone from one to the other. 2/5 FUNCTIONALITY/EASY TO USE: There is a small manual with very little instruction on how to put everything together or use whatever is included. It's pretty obvious and only took me a few minutes to get the hang of it, but be prepared to experiment. "Converting" from one "mode" to another is extremely annoying. The tripod legs are attached in such a way that you have to unscrew the main arm, turn it upside down and reattach it to the base of the phone mount. Without this, the tripod legs will not flex fully. This process must be repeated when switching from tripod mode to embroidery mode. If you don't do this, the selfie stick becomes even more unstable as the tripod legs fold over the main tripod arm for stability, and this whole setup becomes the selfie stick's handle. This is quite effective but the result is a very irritating product. It would be nice if the tripod legs could just be retracted all the way down, eliminating the need to unscrew all of these operations. As mentioned above, the tripod mode works quite well. The phone stays stable, and if you keep everything steady, the hinge is strong enough to hold the phone mount in the direction you place it. The backlight and microphone easily stick to cold boots. In pen mode, however, everything fails completely. The hinge wasn't strong enough to hold my phone, so with enough slight movements the phone gradually fell and finally crashed to the ground. The entire mount is also unstable and the entire mount of the phone wobbles when moving sideways. All-plastic cooling shoes result in very poor backlight and microphone retention; With enough movement - like spinning in circles - they eventually fell off in my tests. I can't imagine this being used on anything but the lightest of phones, and honestly I wouldn't trust it to keep my phone in a potentially 'dangerous' place (e.g. the entire set across a bridge or holding a rock). Between poor construction and the hassle of switching between stick and tripod modes, I can't imagine anyone using this regularly for any length of time unless they have no other choice. 2/5 GENERAL: Even though I got it for free I still feel cheated as the quality was so poor that this product only does half of its advertised function. If you're planning on just using it as a tripod and need the included button phone and microphone for some reason, I think it works well enough. If you want to use this as a selfie stick, look elsewhere. Since you are actually paying for a working product and a non-working product, you'd better buy something else. The concept is interesting and could be really useful if built with better materials and a bit more quality control. As it is, it just doesn't make the cut. I do not recommend!