LG 360 CAM review

WHAT IS THE LG 360 CAM?

The 360 CAM is LG's VR-shooting camera, launched ostensibly as a "friend" to the G5 phone alongside its 360 VR headset. But owning a LG phone isn't a prerequisite, and you could even use the 360 CAM with an iPhone, or indeed on its own – although this isn't recommended for reasons I'll explain later.

It's clear that virtual reality is going to be a whole lot bigger than 3D was a few years ago, judging by the media attention and high-profile product releases. The market is already moving very fast, and as I predicted when I reviewed the Ricoh Theta S , although the latter is a great little product, its reign was likely to be short. The LG 360 CAM could already be its usurper.

LG 360 CAM – VIEWING, IMAGE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE

So, while the Theta S is also aimed at usage with the desktop software that can be downloaded from Ricoh's website, the 360 CAM is intended to be used entirely with your smartphone. However, while you can upload videos and photos directly to Facebook within the app, these won't be recognised as spherical, as they are with the Theta S – which is a bit of a drawback for share-a-holics.

SHOULD I BUY THE LG 360 CAM?

The 360 CAM is a promising offering from LG. In particular, it provides better video quality on YouTube than the Ricoh Theta S, which could be enough to convince those who haven't quite been bowled over by the Ricoh offering that this is the VR camera to buy.

On the other hand, the Theta S has a considerable following already – including from developers – and will be offering features such as live VR streaming via YouTube in the near future.

The clincher, however, is the price. Where the Theta S will set you back around £300, the LG 360 CAM is closer to £200. Considering that you can pick up 64GB of SDXC memory for less than £20 these days, the lack of on-board memory is more of a benefit than a downside. So while this still isn't the essential 360 camera that everyone must have, it's another step in that direction.