Garmin jumps into the actions cam market with the VIRB. Specs, video and details can be found HERE
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Garmin jumps into the actions cam market with the VIRB. Specs, video and details can be found HERE
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Comments
Adam, nothing ruffled here by you either, thanks for hanging this up where we can take potshots at it - which is fair enough considering that Garmin has the nerve to include a picture of a Quad (looks like a DJI 450 or 330) in their pitch for this overpriced potato-cam.
John, I wouldn't even think about trading my old GP2 for one of these, or for that matter my even older GP(1). The 3, as I'm sure you know, is in another world altogether.
In all fairness, it probably has a market especially to existing Garmin customers.
But it's $400.00 price does demand a direct comparison with the GoPro3 Black at the same price.
In this market, the GoPro is kind of the bar to beat and the fact is that for us performance junkies, it just doesn't cut it.
And it certainly costs too much for what it does in comparison to a whole lot of other products.
If they were one of the first out with a nice little sport cam this would have been really cool, but unfortunately this late in the game it's more - - What were they thinking?
Adam, no feathers ruffled here at least. Just a bit surprised by the choices done by Garmin. It's pretty obvious they are trying very hard to sell it to a non-technical crowd, since the techies won't be interested in a gopro2 equivalent camera when the gopro3 is already available.
Just sharing with the community not trying to ruffle any feathers...I like my GoPro's too.
Ah ha, thanks Thomas, I missed that little mid-page tab. Well, we still don't get any lens info, among other things. But here we do get dimensions: Garmin calls this thing "tiny". It's nearly four and a half inches long!!!!! I have sitting in front of me a Pentax W90, which is a very capable little full-feature, ruggedized "conventional" camera, waterproof and shockproof, that is smaller and lighter than this thing, and cheaper too (not that the W90 is ideal for our purposes, though I've flown it a bunch on trad helis, but just as an example). So what we have with the Virb is really just another klunky, simple low-level camera that's been squished so the lens sticks out one end instead of being in the usual area (as has been done by several other makers). For $400. Wow.
You just have to click the right tab...
Manfred, that is a page gushing about "features" with a few random tech specs tossed in to look impressive. It doesn't even list basics like size and weight, low light performance, output options, angle of view and so on. Just whatever some copywriter thought sounded good. And just what one would expect from a company trying to jump on a bandwagon they don't really belong on and that's already left town. I have nothing against Garmin, by the way, but if Boeing all of a sudden comes out with a line of, say, electric toothbrushes I'll not cut them any slack either. Stuff like that just muddies the waters.
The technical specifications are on that link
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod119594.html
I must admit this feels a bit underwhelming. Actual technical specifications are non-existent on their page, and I suspect this is done on purpose. From what I have managed find out so far, the gopro3 has MUCH better specs. The exception are GPS and battery life, both features heavily promoted on the Garmin site.
Virb? Sounds like some sort of unpleasant insect ... "Honey, there are Virbs in this cereal!" And it looks like a suppository - when will designers realize that plain old right angles, flat surfaces and simple circles make things easy to use in ways they don't even know about? (Try putting this thing in a gimbal.) Waterproof, they holler ... to one meter, whoopee. Momentary excitement when they yell "Stabilization" ... um, digital stabilization, another whoopee. They call it "tiny" but nowhere give actual dimensions or weight, but in the single shot on their site that provides scale it looks rather large, certainly way bigger than a GoPro 3. Well, it's going to cost well over $500 by the time one buys the "Elite" model (which has real wireless rather than some weird system that only talks to other Garmin devices) and any accessories, so it must be good. Update: Apparently the Virb weighs 177 grams, over double the 80 gram GoPro 3. Too heavy for my key-chain, darn it!
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