Even though not all those who enjoy shooting videos of their action sports adventures are in love with the GoPro cameras, they’ve certainly set a rather high standard in the class. This was obviously the start of a “war” with multiple manufacturers constantly delivering GoPro rivals, and some even boldly dubbing their cameras as “the (new) GoPro killer”. Ricoh’s latest addition to the action camera segment is not advertised as the next GoPro killer, here are the facts about the upcoming WG-M1 unit.
For starters, one of the strong points of the camera is its housing, which makes it waterproof, shockproof, dust proof and coldproof. The casing will fend off water down to 10 meters (32.8ft), will keep internals working OK after drops from as high as 2 meters (6.5ft) and maintain it in good conditions when shooting at -10C (14F). Having all this armor as standard is of course, quite cool, and will be a strong selling point.
We’re looking at a 14MP sensor camera, with an f/2.8 160-degree field-of-view wide-angle lens and which can shoot 1080 (h.264) HD video at 30FPS, with 10FPS still shots available, too. The Ricoh EG-M1 records stereo sound and has built-in Wi-Fi, as well as an 1.5” LCD screen. The buttons are also big, making operation in harsh environments easier, even with gloved hands. As storage solutions, the EG-m1 has 100MB of included memory and a microSD/microSDHC card slot.
The Ricoh WG-M1 will arrive in October with a carabiner-equipped strap for easy carrying, and a WG adhesive mount to attach the camera to different surfaces using a powerful adhesive tape and a $300 (€235) price tag. The manufacturer will also make available a lot of action sports-specific accessories, such as a wrist strap mount, a helmet mount, a magnet mount and more.
Honeslty, if Ricoh wants to sell this camera, a much better video showcase is needed. The clips after the jump will not convince too many buyers.
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