What is the Wunder360?
The Wunder360 weighs just 95g and is capable of producing videos in 3K resolution at 30fps. It can also shoot 1080p video at 60fps, as well as 4K stills.
Most importantly, the Wunder360 camera will automatically stitch your stills and videos in-camera, in real time, to without the need for external software.
You can also livestream your footage directly to Facebook or Youtube via the Wunder360 companion app and the camera’s 5G WiFi band.
A built-in 9 Axis Gyro Stabilization system promises stable video footage.
Integrated ViewPilot and SmartTrack software allows users to ‘shot first, frame later’ via a Phantom Clipper feature. This is sort of like GoPro’s OverCapture feature on the Fusion.
It allows you to film a 360 video and then re-frame the video by choosing your desired angle of view. You can then scroll the timeline to tag different angles and turn them into one seamless video.
The Wunder360 also lets users follow an object within the frame, leaving the app to automatically generate a video clip.
Build Quality
The Wunder360 borrows its shape from the Samsung Gear and is a surprisingly robust little camera. Its body is largely made of thick plastic with metal trimming.
At the top are dual lenses on either side, offering a 180-degree field of view. On the front is a small LCD screen that indicates the shooting mode you’re in and how many pictures you store on your card.
Above the LCD is a direct record button for shooting without the app.
On one side is a WiFi button, and on the other is a Menu button for navigating between modes and Power/Back button. Beneath these is a compartment for your microSD card and the micro USB charging port.
And that’s it! It’s a pretty streamlined body design, as these 360 cameras often are. Most of your settings and effects will be managed via the app.
Using the Wunder360 app
I’ve said it before: the companion app is what makes or breaks a 360 camera experience. If it doesn’t have live preview or easy sharing options, it’s probably going to let you down.
360Fly, for instance, has an amazing app for its cameras. On the other hand, I still can’t use my GoPro Fusion with the GoPro app on my Huawei Mate 10 Pro, some 10 months after it launched.
I’m pleased to say that the Wunder360 app has been one of the best 360 camera companion apps I’ve used. It’s right up there with 360Fly.
Once you’ve downloaded the app from iTunes or Play, press the WiFi button on the side of the Wunder360 and then tap the green circle button at the bottom of the app screen. Next, tap WiFi and establish a connection. Your default password is 12345678.
Your phone will connect quickly, and then you can navigate back to the app. Press the green circle icon again and the live preview mode loads. Here you can swipe between all the shooting modes and even set up a live stream.
Overall, the app is very intuitive and simple to use. If you’re new to 360 cameras you’ll pick it up quickly. I also found that I could wander quite far from the Wunder360 and still maintain the WiFi connect, allowing me to hide myself from scenes when I wanted to.
Performance
The Wunder360 was a bit of a faff to set up. None of the microSD cards I own seemed to work. I kept getting a message warning of SD Card Error. I noticed in the manual it says if you get this message you should re-format your card.
I then backed up my images and re-formatted the card, but that didn’t work. So I re-formatted another, and it didn’t work either. Then reading the fine print, the Wunder360 can support a card with a maximum capacity of 64GB in the FAT32 format. So I re-formatted a 32GB card to FAT32, and then I was finally in business. With other cameras supporting up to 256GB cards, though, 64GB did feel a bit limiting, particularly given the size of its 3K stills.
In use, the Wunder360 is a joy. It’s small enough to slip into your pocket, and I could easily mount it to a mini tripod like the 3 Legged Thing Iggy and put it in small spaces for enormous views.
Pressing record via the app, there was none of the lag you sometimes get. Videos started and stopped when I wanted them too.
The Wunder360 is remarkably easy to use and a great introduction to 360 photography and videography. But its image quality is a bit lacking compared to some of its rivals.
In good light, the Wunder360 struggles to manage highlights. I took the Wunder360 on a mountain hike through the Lake District on a partly sunny day, and big, fluffy clouds were pretty overblown.
Likewise, I found quite a bit of fringing in areas of high contrast in my images. Tones are also quite over-saturated.
Consumer 360 cameras don’t offer the resolution you might expect from your full-frame or APS-C-format camera given the size of their sensors, but images and video from the Wunder360 did lack the resolution I expected.
Thinking of other 360 cameras in this range of the market, such as the Ricoh Theta S, the Wunder360 falls a bit behind its rivals in terms of image quality.
Verdict
The Wunder360 is by far the easiest 360 camera I’ve used, but its image quality is a bit lacking, even on a small phone screen. Tones are a bit over-saturated and detail is lost in high-contrast rendition, even in scenes with flat tone.
Sample from Wunder360
If you’re looking for an easy introduction into composing and shooting 360 video and stills, the Wunder360 could be a nice option. But I think for about the same money you’ll probably want to look at the Ricoh Theta and Samsung options, which are also easy to use, similar in size and shape and offer better image quality.