Although today's smart phones are taking more and more photos, they are still unable to take 360 degree panoramic photos or videos. So many manufacturers took advantage of the VR/AR boom and launched small devices to shoot panoramas, together with smart phone apps, as a supplementary solution for portable photography. Last year, LG and Samsung launched the first generation 360 degree panoramic camera respectively. It seems that LG will not update its products, while Samsung has launched an updated device. What's the change of this 2017 Gear 360?
Appearance and design
The first generation of Gear 360 looks familiar, like a bulky double-sided spherical camera. It has a mini tripod, which feels solid. It also provides direct operation buttons, which can be used independently of smart phones. The new Gear 360 is more like a Gear 360 mini, and the camera part is more compact than last year, with much improved portability and convenience for use at any time. The new small "bracket" provides a place to hold, so that users can easily control the camera to get the pictures they want to take, and at the same time, they can stand upright on the plane and place them in a fixed place for shooting. The disadvantage is that the new base is not as stable as the original folding tripod, so Samsung has also set rubber at the bottom to improve this problem, and can also improve the friction when holding. Although this is not an elegant solution, it has actually proved that the effect is good.
The new design allows Samsung to move the shooting button and OLED display of the Gear 360 away from the awkward position, making it more convenient for daily use. The layout of microSD and USB interfaces has also been changed, and it supports IP53 waterproof and dustproof as before. Outdoor shooting is not a problem in heavy rain. Of course, underwater use is another matter. Samsung has made these changes to the Gear 360, focusing on improving its portability, so that users prefer to use the Gear 360 to record interesting moments.
Mobile phone adaptability
Operating the new Gear 360 is no different from last year. You can also switch between multiple modes (video, photo, demo video, recycle video and HDR photo). Use the three buttons on the device to set relevant options. The black and white OLED screen will be displayed in the specific position in the menu. Sometimes, you need to scroll through a complete menu because you miss an option during operation. Fortunately, you can select this mode after basically setting it once.
However, the support for mobile phones is as bad as last year. Fortunately, Samsung knows this problem and has added support for iOS and non flagship Galaxy models to the new Gear 360. However, many Android phones are still out of the way. If you can understand the size requirements of a machine like Gear VR, Samsung is arrogant for a device like Gear 360.
Change of parameters
However, not all places have made progress. Similar to the development of smart phones, the new Gear 360 does not intend to participate in the competition of high pixels. Instead, Samsung has significantly reduced the pixels of sensors in this product. The old Gear 360 is a pair of 15 million pixels, while the new one is only 8.4 million pixels. Pixels have been reduced, but video shooting has been improved, from the original 3840x1920 to 4096x2048, but it can reach 30 frames per second, and the new one has been reduced to 24 frames. Pixel reduction has a greater impact on taking still photos, from 30 million to 15 million. When only a single camera is used for shooting, the maximum resolution is only 3 million. We are back to 2005?
When zoomed in to 100%, the noise is quite obvious. I believe many people will not want to see it. Admittedly, for most people, the resolution of the new sensor can meet daily use, and the portability of the Gear 360 will be more practical after further improvement. It must be noted that the effect of changing to a larger and better sensor will be directly improved. But considering the market positioning of the Gear 360, it is really understandable why Samsung made such a decision.
Actual proof sheet
When using Gear 360, you need to note that due to hardware limitations, it is not as simple as recording light information with CMOS as smart phones. Instead, you need to use a larger lens to record light information at each angle and compress the data to the sensor, so you need to adapt to the relatively poor picture quality. This means that the definition of objects at medium distance will not be very high, the details of each area captured by the lens will also be different, and the amount of calculation will be greatly increased when rendering 360 degree images. These are not new to Gear 360. Pay attention to what needs to be recorded when using, and the actual effect will be satisfactory.
Gear 360 will splice the two sides together, which is better than LG to a large extent. However, problems may still occur near the camera. Sometimes there are cases of overcorrection. Because the Gear 360 software tries to do a better job in eliminating seams, it will process the two parts. As a result, one side will be brighter than the other, or there will be abrupt changes in light lines such as the background wall and the sky.
More sheets can go to see
Endurance
Compared with the old model, the new Gear 360 battery has decreased by 14%, with a capacity of 1160mAh, and the detachable design is no longer used. Another change is that the USB charging interface is now exposed and can be connected to an external power supply when in use, which makes up for the defect of this design to some extent. When there is no external power supply, the endurance performance of the Gear 360 is still good. After taking some short films and photos every day in a week's test, about 60% of the power can be left. Of course, the power consumption will be faster as the usage increases.
tail
Compared with traditional camera equipment, the new Gear 360 is quite interesting, easier to share with friends, and more portable and easy to operate than the first generation of Gear 360; Samsung has also improved its USB interface design, support for real-time preview and other functions. Gear 360 (2017) is not so much a new generation product as an improved version of the previous generation. There is still much room for upgrading, such as better sensors, more supported equipment models, and better waterproof and dustproof capabilities. Of course, these shortcomings do not mean that it is bad, but that it is a different product. If you are a heavy Samsung user and are not satisfied with the size of the previous generation of Gear 360, this gadget can be said to be quite suitable.
The last thing to say is the price. The Gear 360 is not a camera you need every day. If the price is relatively affordable, this very interesting product may persuade some consumers to add it to the purchase list. The embarrassment is that the price of the Gear 360 last year was 350 dollars - very expensive. As for whether the price of the new smaller and lower resolution Gear 360 will be reasonable, it can only be announced by Samsung. From the release of the new Gear 360, we can see that Samsung is still enthusiastic about panoramic 360 degree photography. Even though 360 degree photography is not the mainstream at present, the new Gear 360 really feels like a step in the right direction.
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