The ONE X2 is here! ...
...finally. Many were expecting it to be released
at the start of the year, but we got the ONE R instead.
Which was end is a good 360 an action action camera hybrid.
But with the release is the ONE X2
just nine months later, is this really a step up?
Or, is it just another step sideways?
Or sideways and up or sideways and up and then down?
I'll give you my initial thoughts on this,
how it compares to the ONE R and 21 things you need to know
about the ONE X2 by the end of this video.
The first thing I want to share is that, unfortunately this
is not a major, major update like we were all expecting,
I think many people were hoping
for an 8K 360 video camera.
Well, unfortunately we don't have that.
In fact so many things are similar with this camera
and even this camera that I just want you
to manage your expectations a bit,
'cause this isn't going to be a big upgrade, frowny face.
But, there are some cool new things
and improvements that the ONE X needed.
When it was first released,
there were so many things we didn't like about it.
Well, we're actually getting them now with a ONE X2.
Let's start with the design, as you can see
they're very similar,
they're basically the same height and width,
and it's a really good camera design to begin with.
So I'm actually kinda happy that they've gone back
to the original ONE X design, for people
that like a handheld vertical camera like the ONE X was.
And then what they've done is, improved on some
of the things people were complaining about.
The first one being the tiny little LED screen,
that was hard to read in bright sunlight.
Well with the ONE X2, there's now a much bigger colour
screen, that is much more visible in bright sunlight
and it's relatively easy
to navigate around with your finger.
I will stress relatively, sometimes it's easy
sometimes it's really hard.
How cool is it though?
It's like a little submarine window
and you can basically control the camera
change the settings and whatnot
by swiping in the various directions.
Is this screen usable without a phone?
No, but it is a step up from the ONE R
this tiny little square screen
is really difficult to use.
So yeah, overall I think the screen is definitely
an improvement from the ONE R and the ONE X.
Something else exciting is that the ONE X2 is waterproof,
without needing any housing.
It's got rubber around the sides
and everything seems pretty air tight, including the button.
So the on button is here on the side
and the main control button is down the bottom here.
And these are rubber buttons.
And I'd say that these work even better
than the standard non waterproof ones.
Cheese!
I don't know they just feel more satisfying to press.
But yeah, it's waterproof to 10 minutes,
without the need for an external housing,
Which is cool and all, but it still will need a housing,
if you wanna stitch 360 video
and photos properly underwater,
which is a problem that all 360 cameras face.
So I would only really take this into account,
if you're shooting near the water or above the water,
or if you're only shooting in one direction,
when you're underneath the water.
Something that people didn't like
about the original ONE X, myself included, is the battery.
It's kinda hard to take out
and I feel like this could break if you pulled it too hard.
Well, with the ONE X2 it's much easier.
You just pull it out like this
and it's a much bigger battery as well.
This holds about 30% more charge, than the original ONE X.
And it goes back in like this,
and now the camera is waterproof again.
Another thing people didn't like about the original ONE X,
is it's micro USB charging,
whereas with the ONE X2, it's USB-C.
Welcome to 2020, as much as it pains me to say that.
And for anyone who's had experience with the latch
of the ONE R, this one is nowhere near as annoying.
The final thing to point out is, it has four microphones,
one on each side of the camera,
which means it captures full 360 spatial audio.
And it's supposed to have better audio
than the previous Insta360 cameras.
I haven't tested this fully yet.
But, I could say with confidence that it's not going to be
on the level of a GoPro camera.
I tested the ONE R side by side with the Hero 9 Black
and the GoPro came out head and shoulders above
the ONE R when it came to sound quality.
And I can't really see too much changing with this.
It should be pretty decent though,
so I will have to test this further.
And now for the specs, and I'm sorry to say,
but there has been no upgrade at all
since the ONE R or ONE X was released.
We've got exactly the same resolutions
and frame rates for all three cameras.
W T F, yeah I know right!
Like why? That's what we all wanted.
We wanted an 8K camera or not even 8K,
that's a lot of resolution.
What about 7K or 6K or even 5.8 K?
Just 0.1 of a K more, no.
we've got the exact same resolutions for photo and video.
I can't quite grasp why exactly, maybe there's limitations
with having a camera this small.
But I really was expecting some kind of upgrade,
when it came to the overall photo and video resolutions,
and while, image and video size isn't everything,
there are other things that can override that
like good dynamic range, having a better sensor,
better raw capabilities and a whole bunch of other stuff.
But it would have been nice to see the resolutions go up,
even just a little bit to see that things
are improving over the past two years,
but we're still at the same resolutions we were at
when the original ONE X came out in 2018, and I can't help
but being a little bit disappointed by that.
They are saying though that the ONE X2
has better quality video than the ONE R and ONE X.
And from the tests I've done so far,
I can't say it's a night and day difference.
Maybe it's tiny bit better, but it's nothing noticeable.
I did play around with the HDR video mode of the ONE X2
however, and that was extremely impressive,
and so much better than shooting standard video
in the standard video mode.
It is best however, when you're using the camera
on a tripod or monopod,
when there's too much shake,
it struggles shooting HDR video
cause when you think about it, it's doing a lot.
When it's taking a HDR video,
it's basically combining three different video exposures
together simultaneously, while you're shooting.
And that is really complicated to do,
even with high-end cinema cameras.
But yeah, on a tripod, this video footage looks really
really good, especially in the context
of pointing and shoot 360 cameras,
and how those have looked over the years.
Insta360 are also saying that the colours have been enhanced
with the ONE X2 and maybe it's a slight improvement.
I still, wouldn't say that the colours
are 100% accurate to real life.
They just look a little bit off.
It feels like the camera still doesn't have
the bit depth to fully capture all the colours, it needs to
to represent colour accurately.
But you know what?
It's good enough, and it's a slight improvement overall.
Okay, on a more serious note,
you're probably wondering how the ONE X2 compares
to the most recent Insta360 release, which is the ONE R.
Well, I put them side by side here next
to this giant wooden thing.
And, as you can see the footage looks really similar.
Maybe there's more contrast and saturation
on the right hand side, but that is pretty easy
to add in colour correction with the ONE R,
and at 500% zoom, I'm also not seeing any differences
when it comes to sharpness and clarity.
Here's the HDR video side by side.
They both look really good.
Their dynamic range is very impressive.
Maybe it's slightly better with the ONE X2,
I'd say my face is probably a bit brighter there,
so okay, I'm gonna give it to the ONE X2,
but overall I think they're both doing a really good job.
And the reason I didn't include the original ONE X
in this comparison is, that in previous comparisons,
I determined that the ONE R and ONE X
look pretty much identical.
Here's something that's completely unique
to the ONE X2,
they've added their Pureshot mode,
which was previously only available
with the ONE R one inch edition.
And what that does, is it basically takes
a nine shot bracketed HDR Raw Shot, combines it all together
into one ultra high dynamic range photo.
It's all done in the camera and you don't have to edit it,
that much later on.
Pureshot is now the default photo mode,
when shooting 360 photos with a ONE X2,
and I think this is an excellent thing,
and it really takes Insta360 photos to the next level.
Is that on the level of the Theta Z1?
No, the Z1 is still the King of 360 photography
in late 2020, early 2021.
But what this pureshot mode does,
is, it really does help you get the best results possible
for 360 photos within this camera.
Now I wouldn't choose this as a virtual tour camera,
unless you're only shooting for small clients,
or if your focus is video and you just need a bit
of photo on the side, then it's okay.
But, if you really are going to start targeting virtual
tour clients and you wanna scale up a virtual tour business,
this won't be the camera to do it.
Now there's no question, Insta360 are very good at marketing
and they can make a very basic and common feature seem
like a groundbreaking new addition to their new camera.
And I just want to warn you about that.
They've added a bunch of new things "new things"
to the ONE X2, that really aren't new.
And they're older things that we could do before,
but they've just repackaged them
and made them a bit simpler to do within the app,
but they aren't actually new.
One of them is called InstaPano where they say
that the 360 camera takes a panoramic image,
that isn't a 360 photo, but more in line
with what a traditional panorama would look like.
Well, all they did; was just crop in
on the equirectangular image, that's it.
I don't think that's a groundbreaking feature.
And I can't imagine who would use this mode.
Another one is their steady cam feature,
where they're pushing the fact that a 360 camera
can shoot a video that looks like
it was taken on a steady cam.
And while that's true, this is nothing new.
Maybe they're making a shortcut, to do it in their app,
but this is something you can do with all 360 cameras,
including all of their previous 360 cameras.
It's just the basic concept
of reframing 360 video in one direction.
Another one that has really annoyed me over the years,
is the invisible selfie stick.
Oh my God, it's invisible! Where did it go?
Hey, guess what?
All 360 cameras have blind spots directly underneath them,
which makes any selfie stick invisible with any 360 camera.
It's not unique to Insta360 cameras,
and I really don't think this should be marketed anymore,
as one of the key features.
So yeah, just be mindful that a lot of the things,
they're showing with their marketing videos, can be done
with basically any of their cameras,
you could do them with the ONE R.
You could do them with the original ONE X
or even the Insta360 Evo.
They can all do many of the effects that you see
in those flashy marketing videos.
And look, this is a common thing that many companies do
with the new camera releases,
GoPro, I'm looking at you.
But, it's just important to recognise
that these videos are shot professionally,
and the same result could probably be achieved
with the past few generations of their cameras.
Now, Insta360 has also added some cool new effects
to the ONE X2 app, and these can all be achieved easily
within shot lab, within the app and there's no doubt
they're really cool and it's a really fast process
to make these, as you may have seen
in one of my previous videos.
So, they've added more of these with the ONE X2.
However, this also begs the question -
Is what they're doing, ethical?
And what they're doing is, coming up
with these really creative and fun effects,
but limiting them to certain cameras, even when all
of the cameras are capable of doing them,
they'll market them as exclusive to certain cameras.
This happened with the ONE R and ONE X.
I released a video to my channel showing 10 cool effects
that were added to the ONE R
and at the time I made it,
you could also do them with the ONE X.
Yes, they weren't officially promoting it.
And technically you weren't supposed to do it.
It was more of a workaround that I found and shared.
But it worked, literally all of the effects worked,
as they did with the ONE R,
and eventually Insta360 stopped the use
of the ONE X inside the ONE R app
when they released a unified Insta360 app.
And as you can imagine, a lot of people were upset
by this, because this was a work around that clearly worked
with the ONE X and they stopped the use of that work around.
And now it feels like they might be moving towards
the same strategy with the ONE R and ONE X2.
Now firstly, I wanna to say
that these cameras have more in-built effects
and cool things you can do,
than basically every other 360 camera on the market.
So there's no question,
Insta360 are clearly over delivering with their products
and they keep continually releasing new cool updates,
that were never there, when the cameras first arrived.
But when you have a certain effect that can clearly be done,
but, they just choose to offer it
with one camera and not another.
I see that as ethically tricky territory.
I mean, I totally understand if one camera literally
wasn't capable of achieving certain effects,
but, it really does seem like all
of the recent Insta360 cameras have the same insides,
and therefore capable of doing basically
the same stuff within the apps.
Now, while they're not consciously taking away features,
because as I said, those features were never offered
with the ONE X, it is apparent that they're being strategic
with which affects they allow with each of their cameras.
Just something to think about.
Now, I wanna quickly touch on workflows
and with ONE X2, it's very similar to the workflow
we've been using with the ONE R and ONE X,
where there's a fantastic mobile app,
fantastic desktop software, that allows you to do hundreds
of cool effects and reframing of your 360 videos and photos.
It's all quick and easy and Insta360 are leaders
when it comes to work flow.
There are also some new accessories that have come out
with the ONE X2; spare battery, fast charge hub
another battery, lens cap, and a bullet time cord.
They used to use a handle on a selfie stick.
So now it's going back to the code.
Those are pretty good accessories
and, no doubt there'll be more to come.
And one of those will be lens guards,
which is an important thing for anyone that owns 360 camera,
you always know when you go out shooting
with your 360 camera, that there's a chance
it could blow over in the wind and smash a lens.
Ask me how I know.
So yeah, it will be interesting to see how effective
the lens guards are and if they lower
the quality of the shots at all.
Now for the price it's 429 us dollars,
which is about the same as the ONE R.
I'm trying to make sense of this price
I guess it makes sense.
I mean, you are getting that much value for $429.
Although, when releasing a product that is so similar
to their last product, you think they would have used price
as another differentiator but yeah, it is what it is,
and I think it's still a good price for this camera.
Now, I can't help but asking the question of why,
why did they release this camera?
I mean I think we can all agree
that the physical body is much better
than the previous ONE X, so it's an improvement there,
but for everything else you just feel like
they could have added those things to the ONE X
or the ONE R, I'm not gonna to lie,
it was a bit disappointing seeing so few updates
with this camera.
The new camera design is definitely as big as feature.
Is it good enough to upgrade from the ONE X or the ONE R?
No, if you own either of these cameras,
I'd say don't bother with the ONE X2,
because it won't be enough of an upgrade.
If you're upgrading from a much older camera,
or perhaps you're thinking
about buying your first 360 camera,
then the ONE X2 will actually be a really good option.
It's basically the latest and greatest
of the ONE X line, which is clearly going to be
a repetitive thing maybe next year or a year from now,
or even two years, we'll see the ONE X3.
But for now, this is the latest model
and a definite buy for anyone
that doesn't have 360 camera of this caliber.
Now, I do totally rate the ONE X2.
My issue was, as I discussed before,
is that it's not that big of an update,
from their previous cameras.
That doesn't mean it's not a good camera,
it just means that you shouldn't upgrade
from their recent cameras.
And yeah, that's it! Curious to hear what your thoughts are
on the ONE X2.
Let me know down below, I see some complaints coming in.
So that's it for my first impressions of the ONE X2.
I will definitely be using this over
the next few weeks and months,
and I'll definitely release further thoughts on this camera
as it evolves, as it becomes unique in its own right,
and we really understand where it fits
in the overall 360 camera hierarchy.
So yes, subscribed for those.
I hit 100K by the way, that's pretty exciting.
I will make a dedicated video about that.
Just been busy making this video
and doing a million other things.
So yeah, more content on my channel soon.
Thanks for watching.
Really appreciate all of you guys
and I'll see you in the next video.