NEW YORK—You might consider the minimalist HTC RE camera that the Taiwanese company unveiled Wednesday as the anti-GoPro. While GoPro has been a high flier with its market leading action cameras, HTC, despite getting largely strong reviews for its phones, has been fighting to stay relevant amidst fierce competition in its core market, smartphones.
With the RE, HTC branches out beyond phones.
How HTC will do in this new market remains to be seen, of course, but it's very unlikely that the RE will unseat GoPro anytime soon. Which is precisely why HTC's Nigel Newby-House went to great pains to explain to me how the RE is different.
"This is about viewfinder-less imaging for the rest of us," he says, a camera you might pull out (instead of your camera phone) at kid's parties, barbecues, family gatherings.
Indeed, while GoPro appeals to someone like an adrenaline driven cyclist racing 40 mph down some mountain, RE is targeted more at parents who want to quickly capture Junior pedaling along a bike path at say 5 mph.
The cute $199, 2.3-ounce cylindrical camera looks a bit like a short periscope. You press the single chrome button on the back to snap a 16-megapixel image. Or do a longer press against that button to capture Full HD video. The RE has a 146-degree wide-angle lens.
Though you can also stand RE up on its own it also has a tripod connector. The camera can shoot in slow-motion too and take a time-lapse images as well—perhaps leaving RE outdoors to catch the sunrise.
Don't worry if it rains; RE is waterproof down to a meter in length. Through a companion app you can use your phone as a viewfinder, and also free up space on the device. Speaking of which, RE comes with an 8GB microSD card (expandable to 128 GB)
There's no separate power button on the device. But when you grab the RE along its grip sensor it comes alive ready to shoot.
Re has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and HTC says the battery will last for more than 1000 pictures or about an hour and a half for video. HTC says real-time streaming to YouTube is coming.
