Samsung Gear 360 Real High Resolution VR Camera

Good all round performance. Upgraded from an old Ricoh Theta. Especially like live preview in the App. Comes with mini tripod and carry pouch.

Cannot use any other phone to see pictures, take pictures, stitch pictures etc. MUST be Galaxy S6/7/8. No Apple Mac support AT ALL for the stitching. MUST HAVE WINDOWS 7+ WITH PROCESSING POWER AND GRAPHICS.

A really neat little camera. I bought a 200Gb memory card for a little over £20, works great. 35 mins of recording time. The menu needs some care, but still miles ahead of menus of similar equipment. Battery like is easily longer than 35 mins. Though it does heat up after about 12mins or so and needs to be cooled down again. Doesn't take too long though.

I have been waiting for this product to drop the price and finally when it became under 100, i had to get it. I am currently using it as dash cam. Yes it's painful to attach and detach all the time but it records 360 degree. The video quality is good. I went through a lot of reviews and it was worth what i paid for. I have to use at 1080p due to overheating issue. but it's still pretty decent compare to other dashcams. Very happy with the purchase and build quality is just great.

La cámara tiene buenos lentes, por lo que toma fotos con buen resultado, la conexión al celular es bastante sencilla solo hay que instalar las aplicaciones correctas, yo lo instale en un Huawei P9 y se puede tener la vista previa aunque un poco retrasada debo decir que la vista previa es por Wifi-Direct lo cual hace imposible que tengas conexión a Internet mientras tienes la visualización, por eso es que no se puede hacer Streaming en directo La cámara obligatoriamente necesita una tarjeta Micro SD para funcionar por lo que hay que tomarlo en cuenta, viene con una bolsa para llevar la cámara, también una correa que se pone en el tripie, así como un trapo para su limpieza tanto lentes como la cubierta y el cable de carga (1m aprox), incluye ademas un serial o licencia para el SW o programa de edición de Samsung, lo que si es que no trae cargador. Se completa el ciclo de carga en 2 horas aproximadamente, que es el mismo tiempo que dura en uso Lo que no me gusto es que aun siendo que la cámara es 360 se nota el cambio de color en la luminosidad, no se puede enfocar como tal un objeto pero no afecta la toma completa (Esto es en mi caso), el indicador LED de batería solo tiene 2 colores, verde y rojo, por lo que no se tiene un intermedio, solo se sabe si tiene carga o esta baja la batería Recomendaría la cámara por su precio ya que existen otras opciones pero esta es perfecta en relación calidad / precio, también vino empacada perfectamente y el envió fue rápido a pesar de venir de EU, antes de lo previsto por Amazon, 3 días a partir de su compra

Why watch a video, when you can live a moment. I’m a video producer so I’ve played with all the toys out there, but rarely have I come across a device that redefines an industry like the Samsung Gear 360. I’ve experimented with stitching multiple GoPros together to achieve the effect this single camera does with the touch of a button. At almost 4K, the image quality is better than any single package 360 camera available at the time of this review. The fact that this camera is also shock and splash proof allows me to get some incredible angles I wouldn’t dare bring my other equipment. And since you know the device is recording 360 degrees, you don’t have to worry about missing the shot. A single click of the record button and both cameras start simultaneously, eliminated the need to sync in post. And speaking of post-production, I almost can’t believe how simple it is to stitch the footage. What used to take practically a super computer to do the stitching, can be done on a simple galaxy smart phone. I’m almost convinced it’s done with magic. And since you’re using your smart phone to do the processing, once finished, it couldn’t be easier to share your masterpiece to any of your social networks. Even more impressive, many of the most popular social networks like facebook and youtube already have the technology to display 360 content, placing all of your friends in the action as soon as you upload, no special coding needed from you. If you want to do the processing on your computer, it comes with a program called Gear 360 Action Director, which does an equally impressive job of stitching quickly. Unfortunately, its only available for windows at the time of this review, so that tethered me to my desktop, so apple support would be nice. The program is pretty limited, but I only use it for stitching, then bring it in to my Adobe suite, to do the rest. It comes with a cute little tripod that reminds me of EVE from the movie Wall-e, but I purchased a variety of mounts. Most valuable would be a monopod with feet. Tripods will show up in the scene when looking down. The battery will last about an hour of continuous filming and it all records to a micro SD card. The only issue I had with the camera, was some interior lens fogging after moving it from the cold indoors to the humid outdoors. This was a pretty big problem, because once its fogged up, you’re at the mercy of the elements to clear it up. Your footage will be useless if you try to record with the fog. Time eventually fixed it, but be warned, acclimate this camera before any time critical gigs. That is literally the only issue I’ve come across in the month+ I’ve been using it. I LOVE this camera and believe it’s only the beginning in this exciting and revolutionary new media. The industry is moving fast, but Samsung did a great job getting a jump on the competition. The future is NOW!

Really best 360 camera in this range

After doing research on all the 'lower cost' 360 cameras, I constant came to the conclusion that the Gear 360 is the best 360 camera on the market currently. I ended up purchasing the Samsung Gear 360 in October. I took it with me to Las Vegas, the Nellis AFB Airshow, and to Disneyland a few times putting it through a through a few hundred photos and videos. This allowed me to really get a feel for the various aspects of this first effort by Samsung. Photos - As someone who used to do the manual way of taking 20 shots with my phone to make a photosphere, this instant way of taking a 360 photo was perfect. No weird 'half human' stitches from people walking between shots. The photos are stitched well as long as the nearest subject is at least about a foot away from either lens. Putting the brightest light source (like the sun) pointing at the area between the lenses helps to give really nice consistent stitching. The quality, however, is not as high res as you might imagine. While it's better quality than any of the other 360 cameras out there, it looks like a 'medium' res camera took the photo. If you bump up the ISO limit to anything above ISO 800, the image becomes soft, noisy, and looks terrible in the Samsung VR system. Keeping the ISO at 400 makes for sharper and clearer photos, but still not like what the newer smart phones can get quality wise. I was surprised at how non detailed some of the photos could be, especially at night. They are acceptable for viewing in VR, providing you keep the ISO limit low and don't move the camera. But don't expect the quality to be better than a photosphere. Video - Video is said to be 4k, but keep in mind that's 4k when stitched together, NOT per lens. The quality is again decent, but if something is moving fast (a USAF Thunderbird fighter jet flying past at near Mach speeds) you won't see smooth high res motion, but a little more jumpy motion. Night video isn't that great, so you have to bump the ISO limit up for there to be enough light (like at Disneyland at night), and that will introduce noise into the video. At the highest ISO, it can look like the dark sky has the old fashioned TV noise when you flip to a channel that isn't broadcasting. Also, the videos are split into multiple smaller files and can take a really long time to transfer to the phone. However previewing the videos on the phone (without downloading them) is really fast. Phone App - The phone app is pretty simple, and can be slow to respond when trying to connect to the 360. Keep in mind that the 360 DOES NOT stitch the images/videos in camera, your PHONE does all that. I believe only Samsung S6, S7, and S7 Edge phones are compatable (could be more Samsung phones) but there are ways to sideload the app on other phones and get it mostly working. The App is slow to download the images and videos because it has to download them then stitch them. If you have 50 images you want to stitch and a few videos, it could take a few hours to all get done. The app could really use some improvement. That being said, I find it easier to change the limited camera settings (ISO, exposure value, quality/size, white balance, etc) with the app, but it's not something you can do super quickly. I will say that the HDR setting doesn't seem to do anything noticeable for the photos. Build Quality - The camera seems pretty fragile overall, you will NOT want to drop it. Water, dust, dirt, etc are no issue... but the glass bubble lenses are super easy to scratch/chip with even the slightest fall I've been reading... and it's expensive to replace them (if Samsung even will at all!) I wish there was some sort of screen protector I could put on the lenses to protect them. Make sure you keep a cleaning cloth with the 360 as you will want to make sure the lenses are always clean as that can produce weird lens flares. Battery - The battery is small, so if you're using it heavily you will run out of battery within a few hours. BUT, there's an issue with the 360 overheating before you even would reach the end of the battery's life. If it's hot out the camera can easily overheat and it will flash a warning and stop any video recording/photo taking and will force you to wait till the battery cools down. You can pop out the battery and fan/blow on it to cool it down, but this is a major issue. The bad/good news is that all the other 360 cameras out there do this too, so it's something you'll have to live with. I find that if you just turn off the camera in between shots, that helps a lot. BUT, if it does start to over heat, you'll run into another problem that only seems to happen to this camera: 'Blurgate' - As reported on a 360 forum (and as I've seen myself), as the camera begins to overheat, the battery slightly bulges in size. This causes what seems like a very slight movement of the lenses making the camera go slightly out of focus. I've seen this happen myself. It's not blurry to the point you can't use it, but you will notice a suddenly lack of sharpness and detail. Once the camera cools down again, all is back to normal. This seems to be because of the fixed focus on the lenses being a bit too precise. This hasn't been addressed by samsung at the time I'm writing this review (12/2/16), so hopefully either there's an update to help this or the next release fixes this major issue. Again, making sure to turn off the camera in between shots/videos helps keep the camera cool, and in turn keeps the blurgate under control. Accessories - The 360 comes with the battery, a USB cable, a mini tripod (you'll want to invest in a monopod/selfie stick to avoid the 'fat fingers' from holding the tiny tripod), and a nice draw-string carrying pouch. There is an optional accessories pack that includes a remote control, various types of mounts for the 360, and a longer tripod. Overall - It's a great start to what will hopefully only get better. As the whole VR fad continues to get more and more popular, I think 360 cameras will be seen more and more. Right now, everyone stares at my 360 like it's some alien device and are very interested in what it is... but I think we'll see more people with them in the future. If you want to jump on the start of 360 photos and videos, this is a great one to start with having the best quality and stitching time... just make sure you have a Samsung phone. If you're looking to record a concert, show, etc. you might want to wait a year or so as it's not quite there yet. For the casual person who wants 360 mementos from vacations, trips, etc this is the perfect gadget for that.