Vuze XR Dual 3D 360 / 2D 180 VR Camera, Black - Bundle with 128GB Micro SDXC Card, Joby TelePod 325, Cleaning Kit

Dear Reader, this review will be segmented based on items in this bundle that will hopefully never be available again. The actual camera review is based on the camera's 3D mode.Lexar 128GB Micro SDXC Card - No complaintsPro Optic Cleaning Kit - A joke. The cleaning fluid itself was contaminated with something floating inside.Joby Telepole 325 - For the length of my having this kit I felt that this was the strongest part of the package, until today when the legs snapped. The material seems to have dried up and become brittle at the hinge. This actually prompted me to make my review. Fully extended and camera leveled the feet are still visible in frame.Vuze XR Dual 3D 360 / 2D 180 VR Camera - Great concept, poor execution. So the camera that came with my bundle had a scratched lens which made it unusable. I had to refund it and order a new camera because there was no replacement program from the seller. OK, new camera comes in some time after the original purchase. I follow the first use instructions; charge the battery, update the firmware. But the first thing I notice out of the box is that this comes with a table stand, my original camera didn't. The base of the camera slides in making connecting to a computer for file transfers or charging safer. That is until you pull it out of the stand, the fit is so tight that it pulled the base of the camera out with it. Not using that anymore.Main complaint about this camera from other users is the fact that the Wi-Fi connection is hard to get working. Basically, as soon as you activate Wi-Fi on the camera itself you should already have the app on the phone running and click connect that very second. Takes time to connect and it will still give you a error message telling you to restart the camera. Just hit the back button on the app and then connect again, it should go straight to the camera controls.There is a big delay in the video signal, longer then delays I've had with GoPro, makes sense since this is basically twice the bandwidth. Problem comes from starting and stopping recording. You get a loading animation which goes away roughly 47 seconds into recording. Stopping a recording today was worse because the loading animation did not go away at all. This was for a 2 minute video clip. The first clip of the day was over 11 minutes and the app switched back roughly less than a minute after pressing stop.Things to note. Recording is possible without the app but you can't frame your shots because there is no built in screen. There is also no indicator light letting you know the camera is recording, just the beeps that accompany the record button being pressed. Recording anything less than the full 5.7K is pointless, the image quality barely holds up at that unless you light your scene like a pro. Maybe its the compression but this camera makes the Sony 12MP IMX-378 sensors seem weak. Battery consumption is a big problem. The Sony sensors are supposed to draw less power but between the time it takes to link to the app and switching in and out of record mode drains the battery very quickly. When the loading animation was endlessly running my camera battery was at 43% I started recording at 77% after charging my battery the night before. When I restarted my camera to get past the loading animation my camera battery read at 20%. So according to the app I'm loosing 23% battery power just setting up my camera. There is no situation where that is acceptable!I have not yet checked the image stabilization but did record my last clip hand held and will see what it looks like.Vuze Customer Support when telling them about the battery and connection issue was to ask me if I updated the firmware and to send me a video on how to connect to the Wi-Fi.So why even think about this camera at all? Well for me it was the best 3D VR camera for this price point that does switch to 2D 360 degrees at the time I made my purchase. I did have my eye on the Insta360 EVO180 3D and 360 Foldable Camera for about $200 more but finding it was another matter as the company apparently stopped production on it, focusing instead on various 2D 360 only cameras and their professional Insta360 PRO 2. The Vuze XR is a great little toy that will get you started thinking about live action production for VR, capturing fun events to view in VR, but that's about it. A toy with a lot of compromises.

I purchased this camera for its ability to film in both 180 and 360. My team needed a camera to film live performances in 180 as a way of creating a "concert for one" experience for someone in VR. This camera filled the bill for our budget and experience level. The good: it is very easy to set up and I had no connectivity issues between the camera and my smartphone. The not so good: we did several live streams on Facebook and the video quality was pretty bad. The connection goes like this: WiFi from the camera to your smartphone, and then the stream goes over your smartphones service provider (3G or 4G) to your Facebook or YouTube account. By the way, you can use the WiFi connection on the camera into your Oculus Go or Quest as well. The software package itself works pretty well. I wish this camera had the same ability as the Vuze Plus model, which allows you connect straight into a laptop and use a desktop client to stream over a dedicated Internet connection.When we filmed a 180 video and then completed the rendering it was very good and we were able to watch the videos on our Oculus Go. The camera will meet our immediate needs to learn how to film and do post-production. The 360 photography is also very easy to do.Overall, this is a good entry level camera if you want to learn how to film for purposes of VR.

The camera itself is excellent, I was thrilled to see my first 4K VR180 video in my Oculus Rift, it was so lifelike that I felt I was at the start of a revolutionary trend in consumer technology; I plan on ordering an Oculus Quest so that I can see the 5.7K VR180 video that the Vuze XR is capable of recording. My only disappointment is that the price dropped by $101.76 from the time I bought it on Amazon 7 days ago and today. I paid $464.00 and it's currently on sale for $362.34. But I realize that sales are common around the holidays so I think it's a great deal for other people at the current price.

I received a missing sd card in the package but the seller sent one out the card right away. The camera is great and images in vr crisp. The tripod is very short and okay for a table.