SONY
RXØ
MSRP $549.99; housing $899.99
CONTACT sony.com
The RXØ was an outlier because this action
camera seems to be more grounded in still
photography than video, with menus and
functions that will look familiar to anyone
with experience shooting with compact cam-
eras or DSLRs. This tiny titan’s vast library
of settings and features offers professional
shooters a ton of creative power, but also re-
quires a thorough understanding of the cam-
era to unlock its full potential. Unfortunately,
this put it at a disadvantage in a test where
divers were juggling nine different cameras,
and was further complicated by the fact that
we didn’t have an underwater housing for the
RXØ during our evaluation. This limited our
use of the camera, which is waterproof on
its own down to 30 feet, to shallow springs,
where only a handful of testers got any qual-
ity time with it. The housing also would have
affected the camera’s ergonomics. That said,
testers rated the camera very good for er-
gonomics and intuitive operation despite its
array of small buttons and meaty menus—
though programmable shortcuts make it
easy to access quick adjustments. The crisp,
detailed screen is one of the tiniest here
and can be stuffed full of information such
as audio levels, histogram and zebra strip-
ing to help compose your shot. The camera’s
RAW images were rated as very good, while
testers scored the video as good for clar-
ity and color—these likely would have been
even higher had testers utilized the camera’s
underwater white-balance mode. The RXØ
also has the ability to capture impressive,
super-slow-motion video. It can save uncom-
pressed 4K video to an external source, but
is limited to 1080p footage when saving to
the onboard microSD card. ( The new RXØ II,
released during our test, adds the ability to
save 4K video directly to the camera.)
ErgonomicsVideo QualityBattery Life» FHD Frame Rates
120, 60, 30, 24
» Image Sensor
15.3 MP
» Released
September 2017SCORES/ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 / 33ASK ROBBY
Q:What factor was most important to test divers?
A: While the cameras in our test all varied greatly in terms of design and
functionality, the difference that testers were most concerned with was video
quality. While cameras with ergonomic designs and handy dive-specifi c
features scored well, it turns out divers were willing to overlook a great deal
in order to get the highest-quality footage possible. Cameras that produced
clear, sharp video with natural tones and exposure—although not necessarily
color —were overwhelmingly chosen as testers' favorites.