Toshiba has gone and thrown its hat (or helmet, perhaps) into the actioncam ring. Today at IFA 2013, the company unveiled its new Camileo X-Sports model. The rugged little camcorder bears more than a passing resemblance to the GoPro HERO, although it boasts one extra key feature – a built-in 2-inch LCD viewfinder/playback screen.
The Camileo shoots 1080p HD video at a rate of up to 60 fps, via an “ultra-wide” lens (no exact figure is provided) and a 12-megapixel CMOS sensor.
Like the HERO, it comes with a removable watertight housing that allows it to be submerged to a maximum depth of 60 meters (197 ft). Even without that housing, the bare camera is shockproof to a drop height of 1.5 meters (4.9 ft).
Along with what look like some fairly simple and easy-to-understand buttons on the camera itself, the Camileo can also be controlled via a wrist-mounted wireless remote that is waterproof to 3 meters (9.8 ft). Alternatively, users can also operate the camcorder using Toshiba’s Wi-Fi Connect app, on an iOS or Android mobile device. That app also lets users access content recorded on the Camileo via their smartphone or tablet.
Images are stored on a user-supplied SD card, and can be viewed on a TV or transferred to a computer via Micro-USB or Mini-HDMI ports.
Along with straight-up continuous video recording, other shooting modes include photo burst, time lapse, continuous photo, and video looping. In that last mode, it records short stretches of video back-to-back, each one overwriting the one that came before it. If something “epic” happens, however, the user can instruct the camera to save that particular bit of footage. It’s also possible to shoot stills while simultaneously recording video.
There’s no word on battery life.
One feature that the Camileo could stand not to have is its 10x digital zoom. Most actioncam users almost always want the shot to be as wide as possible, and all that a digital zoom will do is enlarge the pixels in the center of the shot. Additionally, it’s entirely possible that the zoom control on the camera or remote could be pushed accidentally, thus ruining the resulting footage.
The Toshiba Camileo X-Sports actioncam will be available in Europe as of the fourth quarter of this year, bundled with a variety of mounts, for €249 (about US$327).
Source: Toshiba