LENSGO TC7II Portable Teleprompter for Cameras

Great for on the Go: One Big Flaw

I'm a podcaster who uses the Glide Gear Teleprompter in my studio. I'm on the go something like 8-10 weeks a year, including being abroad. There's no way I want to pack up the Glide Gear and my studio cam, so I'm looking for something lightweight that I can put on my lightweight Manfrotto tripod. The genius of this lightweight teleprompter is it's lightweight metal guiderails and support mechanisms. They do NOT add significant amounts of weight for the tripod to handle and the balance is great. But out in the field it has two big design flaws. The first is the threaded screw that attaches the teleprompter to the metal support system. It's just too small. Threading it is a bit of a challenge. If that's all I had to live with this would be a five star raving review, but there is one MAJOR design flaw that makes me wonder if I just got a unit with a manufacturing flaw because it makes NO SENSE. That's the camera mount. The camera mount is hinged, and that makes perfect sense for pack and go. It packs up as a straight bar, making everything run in one direction with no awkward angles. GREAT. But my unit does not hinge to 90 degrees!!! WHAT?!?!? I have to exert a LOT of downward pressure just to get it close to 90 (it never really gets there). Part of it I get: you hinge up to 180 degrees to get access to the bottom of your camera and it reliably holds there. Great! From that position you easily retrieve battery and SD cards from a lot of mirrorless cameras. But having to FORCE it down to 90 degrees really stinks. I'm putting pressure on my camera and my tripod both--neither of which were designed for that. And again, since I'm using it out in the field, that means on a daily basis, I have to go through fighting the hinge to get the right camera position. That part really sucketh. But I will say this. Last year I bought the all plastic teleprompter designed such that the plastic housing is supposed to support your camera itself: Nuh uh!!! I'll take this unit ANY DAY over that cheap thing. But the non-90 hinge is a bit like getting sand in your food at the beach, and that's why it doesn't get 5 stars.