MWC 2016: Samsung Gear 360 VR Camera
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
It seems smartphones and virtual reality is an emerging trend this year at Mobile World Congress (well, at least for Korean phone makers). Earlier this week, LG has announced the G5 along with a number of accessories including a 360 degree camera and a head-mounted display.
Samsung, the other Korean phone maker at MWC is doing the same thing by announcing an accessory that will help users to create VR content with the help of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. This is the Samsung Gear 360, which is equivalent to LG’s 360 Cam.
The camera is just a tad smaller than a typical golf ball and sports two 15MP camera sensors that are located at the back and front of the device. There’s a 0.5-inch PMOLED panel on the top of the device which displays basic information about the device including its battery as well as its current shooting mode. The Gear 360 also sports a 1350mAh battery, 1GB of RAM, a microSD card slot that supports up to 128GB cards and an accelerometer.
As far as performance is concerned, the Gear 360 is able to churn out close to 4K quality 360-degree videos – 3840 x 1920 clips (at 30 fps) to be more specific. Using only one camera, the Gear 360 is still able to capture 180-degree videos at a resolution of 2560 x 1440 (30 fps). If you’re planning to capture still images, the Gear 360 is also able to snap up to 30M photos on dual cam setup and 5MP shots on a single cam setup.
Samsung has also taken the liberty to add different video modes when using either single lens mode or dual lens mode. These include time-lapse video as well as looping video. Moreover, the camera is IP58 certified which means it has some sort of waterproofing, though it shouldn’t be treated as a full-fledged action camera.
The Samsung Gear 360 will work on PCs via an ActionDirector software and on some of Samsung’s smartphones including the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, Note 5 and of course the newly announced Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
There’s no word on pricing yet, but Samsung promises to ship the device by Q2 2016 in select countries.
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