Rioch "THETA" 360 Camera, pricey but fun.

We had a chance to play with the new Rioch 360 Camera at Engadget Expand this weekend, and we felt it was the stand out device of the show.

Granted there were some good indie projects which Ill post about last on this weekend, but the Rioch really was the best product of mass market appeal that we enjoyed.

RICOH THETA, iPhone 6 and Test image from Grand Central Station

Its about the size of a Sony Blogger or a Kodak One handheld camera from a few years back, and the same weight too. It pairs with your phone over WiFi, although the demo unit didn't seem to want to play with my Sony Z3 Compact handset - there was "too much WiFi" in the room according to the demo supervisor. Not sure I have heard of too much Wifi before but there you have it.

There are two "unspecified" resolution fish-eye style cameras on the front and rear with a single button on the front. Storage is expandable but I wasn't told by how much and with what despite my questions.

Anyway it comes in a few funky colors, and can be yours for around $300 which in my opinion is bloody expensive for a device I think is made for less than $20. Would make a great present for a technology loving loved one, or for general curiosity if you have money to burn.

I'm sure its allot of fun saying that, the pictures taken for a demo showed a fair amount of noise in the corners of the picture, so I doubt this is for anything serious, although a waterproof version might be fun for scuba diving. Or making your own street-views for sport.

Head over to RIOCH's website for the silly named device, here.