Shimano never does anything by half measures. When the company jumps into a new market, it does so with guns a blazin’. The new Sport Camera is a good example. For a first-year product, the camera comes loaded with features, which is surprising at first glance because this thing is also absolutely tiny.
The diminutive package allows you to mount the Sport Camera in all
sorts of places, and its auto image rotation feature lets you achieve
horizontal video even when the camera is mounted upside down or on its side.
While the camera only comes packaged with helmet mounts, Shimano offers chest
and handlebar mounts and has also equipped its camera with the basic
GoPro-style mount interface, so it plays nice with all sorts of cool
aftermarket mounts.
There is, however, a less shiny-happy side to Shimano’s ‘small is
beautiful’ ethos: It’s not nearly as easy to operate as the other cameras in
this test. There is room on this camera for exactly two buttons, a couple of
miniscule indicator lights and absolutely no screen. Yes, you can record video
and flip through the settings with just those two buttons, but it’s an absolute
pain. Another size gripe? The camera limits you to MicroSD cards that max out
at 32 gigabytes.
Fortunately, Shimano’s Android 4.2 and iOS 6.0 apps enable you to use
your smartphone to scroll through all the camera settings and to use your phone
as a viewfinder and playback device. That’s a good thing, because this camera
has a lot to offer, including very good 1080p HD footage, strong low-light performance,
great waterproofing (down to 32 feet without any kind of external case) and
ANT/ANT+ connectivity, so you can capture speed, cadence, heart rate, gear and
power data from cycling computers (or from Shimano’s D-Fly wireless Di2
transmitter) and display that data on top of the footage you’ve recorded.
PRICE 300$
