Maginon WK 4 HDW in the test: sparking natural talent

Tasty leaves, bulging vegetable patches or compost heaps: tempting delicacies bring deer, foxes, maggots and raccoons close to humans, and not only in rural areas. They are also increasingly foraging for food in city gardens. But which animal fills its stomach on your green? With a game camera you can track down the hungry visitors. You can no longer only get them in the hunting shop. You can always find the Maginon WK 4 HDW on the shelves of the discounters Aldi Nord and Süd. The test shows how sharp the discounter wildcam snaps!

The Maginon WK 4 HDW is currently only available in the so-called professional set for around 140 euros (as of March 7, 2022). The manufacturer apparently follows the motto: “Don’t make a mess, but pack big”. Because here there is not only one game camera for you. A solar panel and an anti-theft housing are also included. But Maginon is not stingy when it comes to accessories for the game camera. Everything is included, from a firmly seated belt to a stable wall mount with a tripod and a 32 gigabyte microSD memory card. Externally, the Maginon WK 4 HDW makes a robust impression – despite the complete hard plastic case. However, the demands on a wildlife camera are high: day and night, wind and weather, they endure outdoors. Neither rain nor falls should harm her. Does the Maginon WK 4 HDW meet these expectations? Fact! During the three-day practical test, it sometimes rained for hours, and COMPUTER BILD repeatedly simulated falls from a height of 80 centimeters in the laboratory. The Wildknipser passed both with flying colors – great!

You should not raise your expectations of the other components of the professional set too high in advance. The anti-theft housing only lives up to its name if you attach it to a tree or post with a cable lock (from 10 euros) and provide it with a padlock. Because if you only fasten it with the strap provided, the camera can be removed and stowed away just as quickly as without the anti-theft housing. The solar panel, on the other hand, invites the fallacy that the game camera can only be operated with solar energy. Unfortunately this is not possible. However, if you equip your Maginon WK 4 HDW with eight rechargeable batteries in AA format, you will at least extend their service life by using the solar panel.

In addition to the anti-theft housing, you have another option to protect your Maginon game camera from unauthorized access. Because there is also a small eyelet on the camera housing, to which you can attach a padlock if you wish. Surely that doesn’t stop anyone from bagging their game clipper and picking the padlock later over a beer in front of the TV. However, uninvited guests who want to quickly delete unfavorable recordings without committing theft immediately have no way of operating the wildlife camera. Inside you use an LC display with a screen diagonal of 6 centimeters as well as large and easy-to-read buttons for operation. After a quick look at the very detailed operating instructions, the setup is a piece of cake. The menu of the game camera is also almost self-explanatory – even absolute beginners know immediately how things work with this game camera.

This even applies to the configuration of the remote access via WLAN, which the Maginon WK 4 HDW has on board. The Wildknipse sends out its own WiFi signal, which you can dial into using your smartphone. When setting up the camera, you have the option of pairing your mobile phone with the wildlife camera – and it’s refreshingly uncomplicated without creating a user account or entering personal data. All you need is the Maginon WildlifeCam app (free for Android and iOS). Now all you have to do on the Maginon wildlife camera is activate the WiFi setting and assign a corresponding password. Then turn on Bluetooth and WiFi on your smartphone and start the Maginon app. After a short search, your device will recognize the wildlife camera and you can start. There were only occasional connection problems when dialing into the WLAN signal again. But if you have a bit of patience here, you can conveniently access recordings and adjust settings from the couch.

• Day shots: The Maginon cam shoots sharp images during the day and can easily recognize fur patterns, for example, but the colors look a bit pale. Your video recordings are also sharp and still look very smooth even in Full HD mode with 30 frames per second.

• Twilight shots: In the test, the Maginon WK 4 HDW switched to night mode before nightfall. There is a slight image noise in low light, which reduces the overall sharpness somewhat, but the bottom line is that the images are usable in twilight.

• night shots: In the dark, the image quality decreases noticeably compared to daytime shots. In addition, the image noise is even more present than at dusk. The quality is still sufficient to identify the animal species, but you have to take a closer look at smaller animals such as mice.

If you are looking for a solid wildlife camera for domestic use, you won’t go wrong with the Maginon WK 4 HDW. Your recordings are particularly convincing during the day, thanks to a great German manual, the setup works without any problems. A special feature of this trail camera is the remote access via WLAN, which saves you having to constantly look for the camera. An extensive range of accessories rounds off the good range of Maginon cams.