Apart from the Selfie smartphone champion called the Desire
Eye, HTC has also unveiled its action camera called the HTC RE, a few hours ago
in its Double Exposure event in New York City.
Unlike the crowd favourite GoPro Hero, the RE sports a
pipe-like design, which according to HTC was intentional to make the device
very handy. Moreover, unlike what many people have speculated, HTC isn’t
marketing the RE as a competitor to the GoPro cameras, but rather it likes to
appeal to ordinary consumers who want an always on camera to capture life’s
most random moments.
The camera is equipped with a 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor with an
f/2.8 aperture that is capable of capturing 16MP still photos, Full HD videos
at 30fps, 4x 720p slow-motion clips and time-lapse recording. Other notable
pieces of hardware include an 840mAh battery, Bluetooth LE for initial pairing
with a smartphone and Wi-Fi Direct for transferring files and remote shutter
functionality.
The device is made from plastic (glossy plastic for that
matter) and features a couple of buttons including a shutter button and a
slow-motion capture toggle. There’s also an 8GB microSD card pre-installed but
users can swap cards up to 128GB in capacity.
As mentioned before, HTC is marketing the RE as an always-on
camera which should allow consumers to easily capture image and video as
quickly as possible. The device doesn’t have a power button and instead is
turned on automatically when sensors in the camera detects you’re holding it.
Capturing photos and videos are also easier – users simply need to press the
shutter button to take a photo or hold the shutter button for a few seconds to
start recording video.
The HTC RE is compatible with any Android device running on
Android 4.3 or higher and iOS7 or higher. HTC will start shipping the RE
starting this month for around $200.
