Today's video might be a little bit weird.
I've been attempting to make a review of this thing here
but I've been finding it pretty difficult.
So, instead, we're just going to kind of wing it.
Let's get undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone.
And today we're talking about the Insta360 ONE X.
Now, as I alluded to in the intro,
today's video was a difficult one for me to make
for a few reasons.
First of all, I don't like making the same video
that's already been made before,
and because this is a popular product
that's been out for a few months now,
there's already a ton of videos on it.
And, to be honest, I've been struggling
to find anything original to say about it.
Second, the way that this product
is positioned in the market is peculiar to me.
It's branded as an action camera,
but it's clearly a 360 VR cam.
It's not that it can't be used as an action camera,
but I can't help the feeling
that it's being marketed as an action camera
to help combat the declining interest in 360 video.
So, that made it difficult to figure out which perspective
I should even be testing this device from,
and to make matters worse, I'm one of those people
that doesn't particularly enjoy 360 video.
But, lastly, on a hardware level,
if you remove the aspects
like the 360 stitching and the VR capabilities,
basically the things that make it unique
over the GoPro or the Osmo Pocket,
basically what you're left with
is a slightly more expensive camera
with worse image quality,
and that didn't seem like a very fair position
to start reviewing this camera.
But, anyway, enough complaining.
Those are the issues I faced when formulating this video,
but I have come up with some solutions.
So, to deal with problem one,
the fact that everything has already been covered,
I'll use this as an opportunity
to shout out some fellow creators,
something that I probably don't do often enough.
So, first up, Philip Bloom
made a tremendously thorough video on the ONE X.
It's beautifully shot and shows off some impressive usages
while remaining realistic.
Not everybody wants to strap their camera to an eagle
or use it to film base jumping in exotic locales.
And so I like that Mr. Bloom shows us that the ONE X
can capture day-to-day activities in interesting ways.
Next up, we've got Lok Cheung's video, which I enjoyed
because it's from a more skeptical perspective
It's probably one of the first ones
that I saw on the product.
This is a great video for someone to watch
if they know absolutely nothing about this product line.
And I also appreciated his comparison
between this model and the previous gen.
Lastly, one of the more recent videos that I saw on the topic
was the Everyday Dad's video, which was a bit of a round up
between the Insta360 ONE X, the GoPro Hero 7
and the DJI Osmo Pocket.
He looked at them from an action camera perspective
and compared the elements that would be important for that.
So, you've got stabilization,
mounting options, durability and so on.
There's tons of great tests and information in that video.
All right, so since those guys
have covered all that stuff so well,
I'm not going to talk about that stuff.
Go give them your views. They deserve it.
One thing that I will continue on
from the Everyday Dad is the durability conversation.
Problem number two about this video that I raised was
What kind of camera is this?
I think that when you say action camera,
a lot of people envision something
that can take a beating.
That's probably what GoPro is most famous for.
And while I like the design of the ONE X,
which we'll talk more about in a minute,
it's definitely not GoPro tough.
And the way the lenses protrude
and the way the weight is distributed
tells me that this is not something
you're going to want to be dropping or banging it around.
So, what I think this is instead
is a camera that captures everything.
The entire 360° field is captured and in focus.
And that aspect is handy for action because
it makes for a great set-it-and-forget-it style of shooting,
that lets you focus on what's important,
which is the action that you're actually doing,
and feel confident that you probably got the shot
because it's pretty much impossible
not to with the ONE X.
That's kind of the point of the device.
You pretty much always get the shot.
And then the app allows you to compose, stabilise
and apply motion to the footage that you captured
after the fact to achieve sequences
that would otherwise be impossible
with a one-person crew.
But that doesn't make it an action camera by my definition,
but it does make it a uniquely convenient camera.
And I want to share with you my new favourite application
for that convenience in just a moment.
♪
My last problem that I raised in the beginning of this video
was that if you ignore the 360 aspect,
aren't you just choosing a camera with worse image quality?
And my opinion on that now is yes and no.
Whenever you choose gear like this,
there's always going to be concessions
that have to be made. You have to go into this product
knowing that it's not gonna look as good as the Osmo Pocket
or even the latest GoPro,
and especially not as good as a full-size camera system.
But in exchange for trading off those pixels
you get that capture-everything
otherwise-impossible convenience
we were just talking about. If you're not going to need
that flexibility of perspective when filming yourself
then this camera makes absolutely no sense to buy,
but when you do need that flexibility,
it's the only option, and from a value standpoint,
the Insta360 ONE X is the best version of that option
available today for the money.
I'd like to back that statement up a little bit
by telling you some of the things that I was impressed with
while using this device.
Again, I'm going to try and not repeat
all the things that those other videos have already said,
but I'm pretty sure that Insta360 sent me this device
because of my review of the DJI Osmo Pocket
and, in that review, I was quite critical
of many user experience aspects of the Osmo.
So, if I'm willing to complain about the little things,
I should also be willing to compliment a company
when they get the little things right.
So, here's my list of things that Insta360
got right with the ONE X.
It has a removable battery.
I know that many of you commented on the Osmo video,
saying that that was a non-starter for you
because the Osmo does not have an interchangeable battery.
Well, that's not a problem here.
It's got great packaging
with little labels on the packaging
so you know what's in each compartment and what it does.
It's kind of like a little micro quick start guide
while you unbox.
It's a great idea and not enough companies do this.
It comes with a complete collection of accessories.
You've got a strap, a protective carrying case,
some little gimmicky doodads and equality charging cable.
The optional accessories are quite good too.
Insta360 also sent over
their invisible selfie stick and spinny tripod combo
that they call the Bullet Time Bundle
because it's intended to be spun over your head like a maniac
while you pretend that you're in The Matrix.
I think the quality of these add-ons is great
and the price is decent
and I particularly like the selfie stick
and using the Bullet Time grip as a mini tripod,
but I find the whole bullet time
spinning-it-above-your-head thing
to be a bit of a gimmick
and I don't really like gimmicky features
when it comes to camera gear. So, sorry, Insta360,
I'm happy to use these things in more conventional ways,
but I'm not going to be
spending this thing above my head.
Okay, maybe just once.
♪
I also like that they included all three USB options:
Lightning, USB Type-C, and Micro Type-B.
In my previous Osmo Pocket video,
I complained about the same thing,
that the Osmo didn't have Micro Type-B,
and in the comments you guys were saying,
"Yeah, well, no new phones make their devices with Micro Type-B
so why do you care?"
It doesn't change the fact that there's millions
of devices in circulation right now that still have
that Micro Type-B connector on it
and, as Insta360 proved,
it's not that hard to include it so good job to them.
I also complained that the activation process
was tedious and silly on the Osmo Pocket
and I didn't like some of the phone requirements.
Now this device definitely needs a phone
but the activation process was so much easier.
I didn't need to create an account
or watch some janky video.
It was just a prop that said, "You need to activate."
I pressed "Activate" then it said it was activated
and I moved on with my day.
And the connection options to the phone are wireless
without having to buy an accessory,
or tethered over a cable
without having to suspend the device on a tiny connection,
which means is going to be less stress on the ports
because it's separated via the cable,
which is another pro to the cabling and design aspects
which is that I would get into to earlier.
All of the cables are right angle connections
on the device side.
So, stress on the port is going to be minimal.
This is a smart design and feels really secure as well.
I appreciate well-thought-out quality cables and connections.
And the USB port is on the side of the ONE X,
not on the bottom,
which is something I complained about on the Osmo Pocket
because you know what is on the bottom of the ONE X?
A 1/4 20 thread, something again
that I wish was included on the Osmo Pocket.
Aesthetically, I think the device is really sharp,
and the two-button design is quite capable
once you get used to navigating with it.
Overall, the experience in terms
of design unboxing accessories and setup was excellent,
as close to perfect as I expect from a company.
So, bravo, Insta360.
Now with a device like this, though,
another huge part of the user experience
is the actual shooting
and then the editing and 360 stitching.
Now, the shooting part is incredibly easy
and that's kind of the whole point.
Just put it on a stick and make sure the stick
is directly underneath it, not on an angle, and press record.
Like I said, all this stuff has been covered
by those other videos, but from a shooting perspective,
it's really intuitive and straightforward.
And when it comes to putting the footage together,
I enjoyed the app.
It has mixed reviews in the app store
but I didn't experience many issues.
Maybe by the time I'm looking at it,
updates have already fixed some of those bugs.
I tested it on a couple of different platforms,
on the Samsung Galaxy S7,
which is a Micro USB Type-B connection.
It was fast, responsive and worked really well.
I love all the options that you have
to manipulate the shots after the fact.
I did have one issue with iOS though
On the iPhone, the 5.7 K option,
you could shoot it and it was
all fine in Playback and everything.
But once you downloaded it onto the phone in order to edit it,
it wouldn't-- sometimes it was kind of buggy.
It didn't like to be rotated.
It would kind of freak out and it would crash sometimes.
But if you used a 4K version,
it worked extremely fine.
So, that might be a bug that might affect you
if you're an iOS user.
One issue I did have though when it comes to editing
is with the desktop app.
It's pretty empty in terms of functionality.
I liked it included a plug-in that allows you to import
the unstitched footage directly into Premiere Pro,
but that leaves you with only a single display mode,
the equirectangular,
which is basically just a flattened image
that I find creates some strange proportions.
And the 360 desktop app is not much better.
It does allow you to apply Flow State Stabilization
and to export it into a more convenient file container,
but that's pretty much it.
You can't do any of the other cool stuff
that you can do on the mobile app,
and again, you're stuck With an equirectangular display.
According to the forums, this wasn't always the case
and for the previous model,
the desktop app had more functionality.
So, maybe this is something that we'll see added in the future.
But as of right now, I do find it a bit disappointing
because I definitely prefer to work on my computer
than on my phone when it comes to video editing.
Alright, so lastly, I said that I would tell you
my new favourite application for this device.
I don't know who all is going to watch this video
or what your specific usage case is
but I do know that the majority of my subscribers
are photographers and videographers,
many of who are one-person operations.
And for you guys, I've got a great application
because I've decided that the Insta360 ONE X
is the perfect behind-the-scenes camera
for your photo and video shoots.
You can pretty much just put it anywhere
and let it run for a spell while you're on the job.
And then when you get home or have some downtime,
you've got some prime BTS content for social,
and it even provides a 9x16 vertical option
if you want to make some exports
for Instagram stories. It's awesome and it takes
the stress out of trying to do behind-the-scenes stuff
when you should be concentrating on your actual shoot.
You can trust that you likely captured something usable
because that's basically what the Insta360 excels at.
That and the mounting options are nearly infinite
because of the 1/4 20 thread on the bottom.
So, you can even stick it in the hot shoe of your camera
or somewhere on your rig for a different perspective.
♪
Anyway, that's all I have to say about the ONE X for now.
If you haven't heard much about it
and you want to know more, make sure you go check out
those other videos and channels that I recommended.
I know this video was all over the place,
but I hope you're able to glean something of value from it.
I think the behind-the-scenes idea is somewhat of a novel use
but I'd love to know your thoughts on it.
Could you see yourself doing just that,
using a camera like this to capture every angle
behind the scenes of your photo video shoots?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
That's going to be it for me.
I hope you found this video helpful or entertaining.
If you did, make sure you leave it the old thumbs-up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already.
If you did not find this video helpful
or entertaining feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.