PREVIEWED: Insta360 ONE X action camera
Our first impressions of the new 360° camera with 5.7K, groundbreaking stabilization and cinematic slow-mo
After several impressive 360° cameras, Insta360 is back with its most advanced wraparound video camera yet – but it’s not all about 360°.
Unlimited field of view
The latest 360° cameras are not really about 360° at all, but rather one simple ambition; to never miss the shot. With a 5.7K resolution – which may sound impressive but is really important when those pixels are spread so thinly – the Insta 360 ONE X also ups the frame rate. Though it sticks at 30fps for 5.7K footage, it reaches 50fps for 4K and 100fps for 3K.
Cinematic slo-mo
It’s that latter mode that enables a new feature called ‘cinematic slo-mo’, essentially allowing users to slow the action down to highlight key moments. So when you film a skier doing a jump, you can slow it all down at the critical moment.
Image stabilization, TimeShift & Bullet Time
Another key area of competition in the 360° camera market is image stabilization, something that the new ONE X claims to have in spades. It’s called FlowState, an algorithm that analyzes movement in all directions. Other features include TimeShift (which lets users adjust the speed of different parts of a clip), Bullet Time (a super slow-mo of the user that resembles scenes from The Matrix), HDR photos, time-lapses, hyper lapses, interval shooting, and timed shots.
Insta360 claim that the ONE X “unlocks the ability to manipulate time and perspective in ways that make it feel more like a fleet of cameras”. We’re putting that claim to the test now, and will bring you a review as soon as we can. Early thoughts on Insta360 One X vs GoPro Fusion – its main competitor – are:
– the image stabilization is awesome but just as impressive is the detail and HDR color
– still images are more colorful than on the GoPro Fusion, thanks to HDR, and sharper
– battery life is very short, less than an hour in our first test
– connecting the app and the phone is so much easier than with the GoPro Fusion; it auto-connects via Bluetooth before a hand-off to WiFi
– the app’s live feed is much cleaner and more detailed than Go Pro Fusion
– app lets you do full edits, including speed of the video, but downloading edited clips to your phone takes a long time
– the 100fps mode for slo-mo is something that GoPro Fusion does not have