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Samsung's Gear 360 goes on sale in the US on August 19th

Samsung's Gear 360 goes on sale in the US on August 19th

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$349 — and of course, you need a Samsung phone

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Samsung is finally officially putting its first 360-degree camera on sale in the United States. The Gear 360, which was announced at Mobile World Congress back in February, will hit retail shelves on August 19th, along with the new Galaxy Note 7 and the new version of the Gear VR. The camera will cost $349.

Previously, the Gear 360 was only available in Korea, Singapore, and New Zealand, though Samsung did sell some units at VidCon in June. The camera uses two ultra-wide 195-degree lenses to capture overlapping images, and it uses your phone’s processor to stitch them together into 360-degree photos and videos. Right now it is only compatible with newer Samsung phones like the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, though workarounds for other Android phones have already started to pop up.

It’s a shame, because the Gear 360 is one of the best — and certainly one of the easiest — options in the nascent 360-degree camera market. Other 360-degree cameras may be more rugged and can shoot in 4K (the Gear 360 shoots sub-4K video at a resolution of 3840 x 1920), but Samsung’s is super simple and the image quality is great. And while big names like GoPro and Nikon spent the first half of the year talking up their own spherical cameras, neither of those products have hit the market.