Top 6: 360 Cameras for under $500. Get the essential facts to help you decide.

360 video has arrived, and it doesn’t require a Virtual Reality (VR) headset. That’s right, Facebook and YouTube now support spherical video using a mobile phone or web browser – utilizing your phones gyroscope or by clicking and dragging in a browser. But make no mistake, 360 video is best viewed via a VR headset.

Regardless of VR’s success and the availability of headsets, capturing 360 video is almost certainly the next trend in videography. Major manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and Ricoh now have consumer 360 cameras. As an emerging technology, things change fast. So which one should you buy? This handy guide covers the basics.

Below you’ll find the latest generation of 360 cameras all for $500 or less.

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Ricoh Theta S: $346.95

Ricohset the standard for consumer 360 cameras. The Theta series’ second iteration “Theta S” sports features expected of a consumer 360 camera – live streaming, HD, tripod mount, etc… The major gripes expressed by users are video quality and limited storage. With 8GB of onboard storage you’d think it was ahead of the pack, unfortunately, that’s all it has.  The lack of expandable storage is a major disappointment.  Video recording is limited to 25 mins of continuous capture with a total of about 65 mins. That’s rather odd. Finally, although the Thata offers live streaming, it requires USB connectivity.

While the Theta S has it’s drawbacks; it’s still a neat 360 camera at an affordable price. Depending on your preferences, its strengths might outway it’s drawbacks.

Samsung Gear 360: $350 (when available in the US)

The highly anticipated Samsung Gear 360 is only available to creators, but you can still pick up the international version at Amazon.com for a few bucks more. Don’t fret, the Gear 360 will be avaible on August 19th to US customers. Initial reviews are great. Early adopters tout it’s video quality and overall functionality. The Gear 360 has it all – dust and splash resistant, tripod, almost 4k resolution, etc.. – but no live streaming. At $350 most, if not all, competing cameras offer some live streaming capability.

If you don’t care for live broadcasting, then the Gear 360 should be at the top of your list – especially if you are a Samsung junkie.

Insta360 Nano: $199.00

By far the best value on this list, but such value is only realized by iPhone 6 users – although it appears to work just fine with the iPhone 5. The Insta360 Nano isn’t the most feature-rich product, but the price doesn’t demand it. Besides, it has pretty much everything a noob in 360 videos would want – 3k video, live streaming to Facebook, YouTube, and WeChat, along with expandable memory.

The Nano’s pocket size form factor and the ability to live stream 3k video, looks to disrupt the 360 camera market largely dominated by Ricoh’s Theta product line. iPhone 6 owners should buy this camera, in fact even without an iPhone the price makes it an attractive alternative to the $350+ options.

ALLie Camera: $499.00

The ALLie Camera has some decent reviews, but I have some reservations. It appears to have some connectivity issues, and a subscription is required for personal live streaming – a feature for which the makers hope to set it apart from other 360 cameras. The ALLie will stream live to YouTube via its Android and iOS apps without the need for a subscription. That’s a good thing. My gripe is with their advertising. They boldly proclaim 4k video,  but that is somewhat of a lie. Each camera is 2448×2448, when you times that by two its over 4k. Saying the video is 4k misrepresents the real resolution which is 2k. After all, you can’t view the whole sphere at once.

Although the ALLie Camera’s target market is home surveillance, their tech is reliable. Deceptive marketing aside, the ALLie Camera is worth consideration for its cloud-based live streaming and home security.

LG 360 Cam: $198.99

At under $200, the LG 360 Cam was in a league of its own until the Insta360 Nano surfaced. Outside of some software issues, the 360 Cam is solidly built and comes with a nice little case. It falls short of the Nano in some areas – 2k video and no live streaming. The Nano sports 3k and live streams to Facebook, Youtube, and WeChat.

All-in-all LG offers a rather decent 360 camera worth your consideration. Keep in mind that the Nano doesn’t trump this cam in all areas – like Wifi and Bluetooth support.

Giroptic: $499.99

This crowdfunded 360cam by Giroptic sports a unique modular design. Unforetunilty, unless you’re an early Kickstarter backer, you’ll end up spending almost $900 to take advantage of all this camera has to offer. Only one of the three modules is included in the hefty $500 price tag. If you want any sort of live streaming, you’ll need either a $79 light bulb adaptor for local streaming (think surveillance) or the $279 ethernet adapter for public live streaming. Once again, another disappointment here as live streaming only supports the Wowza platform. For professionals that might be okay, but for regular folk not so much.

Giroptic’s Kickstarter campaign was very successful with over $1.4 mil raised. Right now the camera is only offered for pre-orders and has started to ship to backers and some initial pre-orders.  For the price,  better options are available (see any of the above). This product highlights the downside of crowdfunding. Starting from scratch renders the product susceptible to big players swooping in and undercutting and out-featuring you. An early backer that purchased a Theta S while waiting on his Giroptic 360cam is very critical of this camera and is worth a read.

You’ll notice that some popular cameras are missing (like this one from Kodak), this is by design and I’m not simply being lazy. I limited this list to under $500 and to cameras that are 360×360 (or really close). Some offerings are not truly 360 and, in my opinion, most consumers will demand prices below $500. I’ll have a prosumer list out later for peeps with more disposable income.

Do you have any of these cameras? If so, what compelled you to make your purchase? Do you own more than one from this list? Or better yet, do you have all of them? I’d like to hear from you.

What features in this category (under $500) would you like to see?

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