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- First reviewAugust 31, 2016
- Last reviewAugust 31, 2016
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RECONFX's Reviews
Relive life's moments with a Samsung Gear 360 camera, which captures a real panoramic view. When needed, switch to the single-lens mode for a more clear and concentrated photo. With the Samsung Gear 360 camera, it's a simple three-step process to capture, edit and upload your photos to your favorite social media sites.
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4
Best value? Samsung offers easy entry into 4K VR!
on August 31, 2016
Posted by: RECONFX
Samsung offers an easy entry into a consumer-friendly 360-degree action VR camera world! The Samsung Gear 360, will be priced at US $349 upon release on August 19th this year, and will allow consumers to enter this brave new world of 360-degree capture and exploration.
PROS: The two separate 15MP CMOS sensors on either side of the camera's shockproof, weather-resistant body capture a 360x360 degree Field-of-View resulting in fully spherical recording. Simply turn the camera on, select the photo or video mode using the Menu button and hit the red capture button up top which is situated next to the bright, easy to read LCD status screen. This screen will also give you a read out of the battery life, estimated number of pictures or hours of video you can take, and is also used to navigate the simple menus. The first time you power on the device, select to record in 4K. The Gear 360 is supremely easy to use, offers little customization but the most simple way to capture and share photos and videos in 360-degrees. You can select to capture using both lenses for full spherical video/photo or use one side for hemi-spherical (imagine half a globe instead of a full globe of video/photo) capture.
The package comes with a nice, padded carrying bag, a microfiber cleaning cloth and a wrist strap that can be attached securely to the included, cute & adorable, mini-tripod/selfie (all-ie?) stick. This ingenious design really helps in being able to use the camera in a variety of situations from clubbing to dash-cam(ing) to capturing while walking (et al a walking tour if you will). The included li-ion battery seems to last easily for over an hour of recording 4K video and the microSD card slot will accept up to 256GB easily. There's also a microUSB port on the body of the camera hidden behind the weather-resistant flap on the side which will allow you to connect the camera to a computer so you may use the Action Director desktop software to quickly process captured videos to have them stitched and become ready for uploading to YouTube/social media. For on-the-go, Samsung provides a mobile app only available on its compatible Galaxy phones; Galaxy Note 5 & 7, S6 and S7 family. It can be assumed the Galaxy S8 in 2017 will be supported too. The app acts as a sort of remote control via Bluetooth/NFC and will allow you to capture, setup and share.
Speaking of the battery lasting a good duration to capture, the Gear 360, for as easy as it may be to do what it does well enough, had an issue I've seen in other 4K-capture devices: shutting down due to overheating. During a drive around town and also during a TV wall-mount installation, the camera overheated and had to shut down for about 5 minutes to cool down and be used again after recording for about 20+ minutes. The Kodak PIXPRO SP360 4K cameras do this as well, and many mobile phones that capture 4K video have also done this in the past, either shutting down the app or the device itself to cool down due to overheating. It's just the nature of the tech itself, the nature of the beast that is 4K and shouldn't be considered detrimental to your decision in choosing to buy one of these devices or not.
The software that is bundled with the camera is actually quite awesome! It's very easy for an inexperienced individual like myself to be able to produce an almost professional quality edited 360 video and post to Facebook and YouTube directly. It's created by Cyberlink, same team behind PowerDirector video editing software suite for the past 15+ years. A product code to activate your copy is included inside the packaging.
CONS: In comparison to the SP360 4K Action VR Cameras as well, the picture quality on Gear 360 is not as clear or sharp as it is on the Kodak PIXPROs. But it is still a world better than the LG 360 and Ricoh Theta S.
Other thoughts/Conclusion: The real benefit here for the Gear 360 is the performance per dollar you are getting here. Which will be sure to draw in alot of attention at launch. I give the device and it's solid experience an 8.5/10. The points I've docked are solely for the lower image quality than competition and the isolated user crowd Samsung has pioneered this camera for - which is Galaxy phone users. Sure with a little bit of extra out-of-your-way work, any computer user can also make use of this camera, but it should've been available to be used with Android-wide and iOS-wide apps. Bigger target audience = bigger sales.
Note: I received the product as part of an early reviewer program and my eligibility does not depend on the direction of my review. The product was not free, nor do I get to keep it unless I pay for it.
My Best Buy number: 2176048732
I would recommend this to a friend!
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