HTC is branching out, the smartphone company is taking a run at a market currently dominated by the likes of GoPro. Meet HTCs new Re handheld camera.
It’s a pretty simple device. There’s no zoom, no modes, not even a display to check your photos. You grip the HTC Re in your fist, press once to grab a 16MP still and press a little longer to start shooting a Full HD movie. Pretty hard to go wrong with something that simple.
The HTC Re has a 146-degree super-wide-angle lens, so it’s not going to be great for those long range shots, it’s designed to capture what’s going on around you.
HTC thinks your camera shouldn’t get in the way of what’s happening in the moment, and it might just have a point. How many shots have you lost fiddling with your compact camera’s mode dial or zoom setting?
There’s no power button; a grip sensor activates the camera when you pick it up. Stills and movies are recorded to the 8GB microSD card supplied with the camera, with the option to upgrade to a bigger microSD if needed.
The Re camera is a portable, durable camera meant to be used for everything from surfing to selfies. According to the Re website, its camera will be available for somewhere around £200 for the UK if they follow the pricing plan in the US and AUS.