Consumer Electronics, Gadgets & Accessories

PanoClip Lite – the Snap-On 360° Lens for iPhone Under Test

With a smartphone, a good camera is always ready to hand. Whether for vacation photos or Selfies, there is no excuse not to take a photo. With the Snap-On 360° lens from the manufacturer PanoClip, 360° photos can now be taken directly with your iPhone without much equipment.

Scope of Delivery of the PanoClip Lite

  • 2x lenses
  • Manual
  • Mobile phone attachments (iPhone 6/6s, 7/7Plus, 8/8Plus and X)
  • Transport cover

Superstructure and Setup

The PanoClip Lite comes in a compact package. This contains various essays, depending on the iPhone model. The two lenses, one for the front camera and one for the back camera, are screwed to the appropriate model. The lenses are completely identical, so there is no danger of confusion. With these few steps, the PanoClip Lite is assembled and you can move on to the setup. Download the free app of the same name from the Apple Store onto your iPhone. It must be activated the first time it is used. An activation QR code can be found in the small manual. Scan it with the iPhone camera.

Operation

Before you can shoot 360! with the PanoClip, you’ll need to remove any sleeves or bumpers, because the PanoClip only fits on the naked iPhone. Then place the PanoClip on the right side so that both cameras are covered with one lens each.

Now start the app. This takes a few seconds and at first glance looks overwhelming with sample images of other users and even videos. To take a new photo, there is a small plus sign in the bottom left corner of a yellow circle that leads you to the shooting mode.

If the PanoClip has not yet been attached, a message will now be displayed. In the lower center of the app is the trigger button, as known from the regular camera function. Alternatively, you can use the volume button on the side to shoot photos. After triggering, a large hint appears that the device should be kept still. As soon as a photo has been taken, you can continue taking photos immediately afterwards. The workmanship of the previous photo takes place in the background, where the app assembles the photo into a 360° view. This also takes a few seconds.

App Features

The photos you create are not automatically stored in Apple’s own photo library as you might expect, but only within the PanoClip app. There the photos can be viewed with a little wipe as a 360° view or as a so-called “fisheye” and pushed into any position with the fingers you like. If you also want these photos in the normal photo gallery, click on the word Snapshot in the app, but don’t confuse it with the iPhone’s own Snapshot function. In the photo media library it is then like a “usual” photo, without possibility of turning, callable.

The app offers beside the pure admission and view an own photo workmanship. The user easily pimps his photo with predefined filters, setting sliders or stickers.

Fisheye

360° Photo

Share Pictures

The PanoClip app of course offers the function to share photos with others on social media channels. But then they are like a snapshot and the effect of the 360° view is lost. However, there is a way around this. The app is very confusing and the function under Sharen > Album as a… hidden. Already the menu item, which is not completely readable, is a deterrent at first, but whoever finds it expects the possibility to save the photo as a 360° photo, which looks similar to a panorama.

Another possibility is the export as so-called Spin View. Here the photo is stored in a small 10 second recording as a video. How exactly this Spin View should rotate is not adjustable in the app.

Spin View

One last possibility is to share your photo on the platform provided by another manufacturer for 360° shots. But be careful: As soon as you click Share link, your shot photo will be uploaded to the platform without any further hints. No reference to privacy, visibility or the possibility to delete it again. Especially since no registration is required, as perhaps thought. After this function is more or less wrongly clicked, you will receive a link to share. The link for the test is available, but the photo is not loaded. Since I personally find it very dubious, the failure for this test is no shame!

Conclusion of the PanoClip Lite Review

The PanoClip Lite turns the iPhone into a 360-degree camera. The idea is funny and the small PanoClip Lite is quite handy. It comes with various essays and thus covers the use of different iPhone models. However, it is not stable enough for frequent changes because it is made of hard plastic and the lenses have to be screwed on and off. Those who only have one iPhone model are better equipped with the “normal” PanoClip. The lenses are fixed, the attachment looks higher quality, even if more bulky and costs the same price at the manufacturer (49,99$).

The app needed for the recordings is quite large with 178 MB. Nevertheless, the size does not justify the fact that it takes a very long time to start alone. She also takes quite a long time to create the photos. It is almost impossible to take a photo with an outstretched arm and keep still at the same time.

Photos can be edited in the manufacturer app. The range of possibilities is currently very limited. More filters, more stickers, own spin view views and with regard to stickers, a connection to the ones installed in iMessage would be desirable.

If you don’t want the photos just for yourself, you can simply share them as a snapshot or share them with the 360° view via aberrations. However, the user should exercise caution here, as the photo can quickly end up on a public platform at some points.

All in all, the result is funny. They are something very special and an interesting change. So the user has never captured the world before. However, there is an absolute NoGo when using the app with the iPhone tested here (model 6). The iPhone gets glowing hot and the battery drops by 30% at just five photos. This means that the fun is only of very short duration and the user has to wait too long for a result.

PanoClip Lite

Workmanship
Software
Usability
Capture Quality
Battery Usage

Nice gimmick with room for improvement

The PanoClip Lite is an interesting extension of the iPhone in its photo function, which however comes along with hurdles and partly dubiousness.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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