Apart from the Galaxy S8 smartphones, Samsung has also unveiled a brand new Gear 360, simply called the Samsung Gear 360 (2017). Other than the obvious design changes on the 2017 Samsung Gear 360, Samsung also changed some of its internal hardware.
Samsung Gear 360 (2017)
In terms of specifications, the original Samsung Gear 360 housed two CMOS 15MP f/2.0 fish-eye lens cameras, while the Samsung Gear 360 (2017) packs two fish-eye lens with a lower 8.4 megapixel f/2.2 count. When it comes to video, the new Gear 360 records in MP4 (H.265 encoding) format at 24fps with a resolution of 4096 x 2048 (4K). As for photos, the Gear 360 takes high resolution 15MP stills by stitching images together.
Since the Samsung Gear 360 (2017) has a smaller body, it also has a smaller 1,160mAh battery instead of a 1,350mAh cell found in the original Gear 360. It now also supports a higher microSD card capacity up to 256GB (originally 200GB). Moving on from microUSB, the 2017 Gear 360 now also utilises USB Type-C (2.0).
Another noteworthy feature about the Samsung Gear 360 (2017) is its ability to directly livestream content. Called the “360 Social Live Broadcast”, the Gear 360 can be used as a 360-degree live broadcasting device when it is synchronised with a compatible smartphone or PC. Apart from that, it also allows users to directly upload to platforms like Facebook, YouTube, or even Samsung VR.
One of the major setbacks from the original Samsung Gear 360 was its lack of compatibility with non-Samsung devices. Samsung realised that and has finally widened the 2017 Gear 360’s compatibility to more devices, even Windows and Apple products. The Samsung Gear 360 (2017) now supports:
- Galaxy S8
- Galaxy S8+
- Galaxy S7 edge
- Galaxy S7
- Galaxy S6 edge+
- Galaxy S6 edge
- Galaxy S6
- Galaxy Note 5
- Galaxy A5 (2017)
- Galaxy A7 (2017)
- iPhone 7 Plus
- iPhone 7
- iPhone 6s Plus
- iPhone 6s
- iPhone SE
- Android 5.0 or later
- iOS 10.0 or later
- Windows and Mac PCs
It’s great to see Samsung opening up the Gear 360 (2017) to more devices, giving everyone access to create more 360-degree content. See more of the device below:
