HTC hopes to reinvent mobile photography and imaging with the HTC Desire EYE “double exposure” smartphone, the RE fun camera, EYE Experience imaging software, and enhanced Zoe video editor.
The HTC Desire EYE will be available in Singapore from 27 November at SITEX 2014 at S$728 S$628, through StarHub and M1.
Errattum:
HTC has updated that the price of the HTC Desire EYE in Singapore during SITEX 2014 to S$728 from the S$628 in the original press release.
HTC Desire EYE (left, in White and Coral Red duotone) phablet and HTC RE (in green) camera.
HTC has announced two new innovative gadgets which I had the chance to preview last week – the RE fun camera and Desire EYE Android phablet – both of which are water proof.
HTC RE camera
The RE camera will be available from late December onwards. HTC has yet to announce its price tag in Singapore.
RE is also available in white (shown above), orange and blue. Here it is mounted in a holder with a suction cup for the windscreen of a car.
RE is a small handheld point-and-shoot camera that you can use to take still photos, record videos.
It is capable of taking slow-motion videos and time-lapse videos as well.
RE comes with a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor and is capable of recording Full HD (1080P) video.
Photos and videos captured by RE are stored in a microSD card in the camera and can be set to be automatically uploaded to a smartphone or to the cloud.
And – the RE is waterproof (IP57) out of the box – without any need for additional water-proofing accessories!
First looks:
What’s interesting is that the RE does not come with a viewfinder – so you’ll have to point in the general direction of the subject that you want to capture and trust your luck.
RE will be available in late December 2014. Prices TBA. Here it can be mounted on a bicycle bar.
No framing of the scene or selective focusing on a specific subject.
HTC has put in a 146 wide-angle lens so there is a high chance that your main subject is captured within the frame and is within focus because of its large depth of field.
The idea is to make mobile imaging quick, fun and simple – to enable more spontaneity in shooting photos and capturing videos.
You literally just point and shoot – no framing, focusing, selecting modes and settings etc.
You can preview/review/delete photos using a RE app on an iOS/Android smartphone that’s connected to the RE via Wi-Fi Direct.
So theoretically you CAN frame your photos/videos before shooting, using the RE app.
By the way, the RE does not come with built-in flash as well.
HTC Desire EYE
The Desire EYE phablet is the top-of-the-range model for HTC’s Desire product line. It uses a nano SIM.
The HTC Desire EYE is also available in Submarine Blue / Matt Blue duotone at S$728 S$628 (incl. GST) in Singapore.
It measures 151.7 x 73.8 x 8.5mm, weighs 154g and sports a 5.2-inch Full HD 1080p display, powered by a 2400mAh battery.
The Android phablet sports a front-facing camera that is as good as the rear camera.
Both cameras shoot 13 megapixels each and using the Split Capture function, both cameras can be made to shoot at the same time to produce a composite photograph made up of the exposures from the two cameras.
Powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and high-speed 4G connectivity, the phablet body boasts a dual-colour unibody design that is waterproof (IPX7).
In the coming months, HTC Eye Experience features will be rolled out to HTC One (M7), HTC One (M8), HTC One (E8), HTC One mini, HTC One mini 2, HTC One max, HTC Desire 816 and HTC Butterfly 2.
The full feature list for each phone model will be confirmed with each roll-out.
The HTC Desire EYE comes with HTC Eye Experience and Zoe to enable powerful editing adn easy sharing of your photos and videos.
HTC Eye Experience includes face tracking during video conferencing; Crop-Me-In for extracting your image from the background to be placed in the photo shot by the rear camera; as well as Voice Selfie to activate the shutter by voice while taking selfies.
Other features in HTC Eye Experience includes Face Fusion for merging two faces together, and Live Makeup which allows you to control the level of skin smoothing in your photos.
Tags: Android, cameras, Desire, HTC, phablets, RE, Singapore, smartphones, waterproof