- Insta360's X series.
It is the company's most successful camera lineup to date
and it's their flagship 360-degree action camera.
The X3 sold over 1 million units
since its launched in September 2022.
But as a whole,
they're starting to look a lot like a camera series
that we all know real well.
I'm Becca. Welcome back to Full Frame.
Let's talk about how Insta360 is gonna solve
the Hero problem.
(gentle music)
This is the new $500 Insta360 X4,
and there are really only two things
you need to know about it.
It's capable of 360 video at 8K 30 frames per second,
so clear some space on your hard drives,
and it has a new removable lens guard system.
Spec bumps can be a big deal and 8K is no small feat,
but the X4 is a unique product for Insta360
because that's pretty much all they gave us this year.
There aren't any fancy software tricks like the Me Mode
that we got on the X3 that uses both lenses
to create a POV from the bottom of the camera
for use with a selfie stick.
And there aren't any fancy Shot Lab features
that started rolling out with the X2,
like the AI Warp that puts an artistic look
onto your footage.
And lastly, the design language stayed almost the same
from the X3,
except for the fact that the X4 is a bit bigger,
which is a first for this lineup.
All of this is starting to signal to me
that the X4 might represent the final form
of the X series lineup.
Sort of how in 2016 when the GoPro Hero5 was launched,
well, that kind of became the final form
of the GoPro Hero lineup.
In the first half of 2012,
GoPro was responsible for 21.5%
of all digital camcorder shipments in the U.S.
And later that year, when the GoPro Hero3 launched,
it was the highest selling POV camera on the market.
This was because of a few things.
First, GoPro was at the right place at the right time.
More typical point and shoot cameras
were rapidly being replaced by the cameras on our phones,
while GoPro's offered folks a unique POV
from a camera that could take falls and go underwater,
so long as it was in its housing.
And second, GoPro's marketing was incredibly strong.
By 2013, GoPro logos were seen all over action sports.
Take for example, the 2013 X Games Aspen.
You can see GoPro logos here, here,
and even here on Shaun White's helmet
when he landed the first triple cork
in X Games Slopestyle history.
But GoPro marketing wasn't only on our TVs
and on our favorite athletes.
Anywhere a GoPro was sold, there was a TV next to it,
showing all of the amazing things you could capture with it.
But by 2016, sales of the Hero camera were down
and the infamous Karma drone
was literally falling out of the sky.
But I don't need to talk about Karma
or how big this drone is.
Oh my God.
I don't need to talk about any of this
to continue talking about how the Hero lineup, ah, God,
how the hero lineup plateaued.
The bigger problem with GoPro's Hero line
was that it oversaturated its own market.
I mean, everyone had of these cameras
and they had nothing more to do with it or to learn from it,
and this is the GoPro problem.
How do you keep people's attention
when innovation starts to slow?
In a lot of ways,
Insta360 has already begun solving this problem for itself
by taking its camera tech
and putting it into other products.
This includes a webcam, the tiny Go Cams,
a 360 drone attachment, and even a gimbal.
But I wanna talk about the X series
specifically in relation to the Hero series
because, I mean, for starters,
it's Insta360's most successful product,
and also, it's whole launch and beginning
and the way it's continuing
mirrors the Hero lineup almost to a T.
So first, Insta360 launched a camera
that most folks had never seen before
and one that was far more versatile than our phones.
Then the company showed people what they could do with it,
not by putting it on screens in stores,
but instead paying a lot of money to influencers
who then made videos about it and flooded our algorithms.
And now, in a real full-circle moment,
there's a Shaun White partnership
with the Insta360 X3 camera snow kit,
which is simply a camera bundle with mounts and such.
In this time, the cameras in the X lineup
have been improving in both hardware and software.
Here's each camera in the lineup
recording the same 360-degree scene
with the One X on the far left
all the way to the X4 on the right.
(gentle upbeat music)
The good news is Insta360 has seemingly found
what works best in a consumer 360-degree action camera.
The software is easy to use and footage is easy to edit.
The hardware looks and feels great.
The footage is punchy without looking like bad HDR,
and it is super steady.
The problem with all that is we've been saying most of that
for at least two generations,
but we definitely said all of that with the X3.
There are a few new pieces of information
I can add to the story this year with the X4.
First, 8K creates heat, and this camera does get warm.
It even overheated on me
while filming this Hyperlapse on a plane
that was supposed to be a view out the plane window,
but since that was overexposed,
it became a Hyperlapse of me sleeping.
Second, the battery life is solid despite the 8K.
Even after overheating, the camera cooled down a bit,
and I was back filming with a battery
that still had plenty of juice.
And third, the mics are so good
and they do a great job of picking up on voices.
Okay, wait, this is my favorite run.
And I opened it up,
but I don't know when I opened it up.
It's gonna be mad sketch. Here we go.
Okay, sick. Sick.
Yaw. Yaw.
Lastly, if you'll be viewing this footage
on anything larger than a phone,
8K is great and certainly crisper than the 5.7K on the X3.
That being said,
if you won't be viewing it on anything larger than a phone,
save yourself the 100 bucks and stick to the X3.
So the question that remains for me
is that if the X4 is in fact the final form of this lineup,
and like the Hero lineup,
we're just gonna see small spec bumps year over year,
Insta360, what are you gonna do next
that is as successful as this?
This is a company that doesn't sit still.
This is a company that will surprise you and put out,
I don't know, a webcam randomly.
This is a company that wants to disrupt markets
and wants to keep outpacing itself.
This is not a company
that puts out a camera with a small spec bump.
And so I know that their resolve
will be doing something that none of us expect,
and I'm excited to see what that product is.
(Becca whistling)