- [Justin Brown] What's the best smartphone gimbal
or stabilizer in 2018?
In this video we compare two of the leading options,
the Zhiyun Smooth 4 and the DJI Osmo Mobile 2,
and cover everything you need to know.
(r&b beat)
- Hey it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video,
where we help you amplify your business
and brand with video.
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and all the links to everything we mention in this video,
you can find linked in the description box below.
Just before we jump into it,
I did actually have to google to try and find out
how to pronounce Zhiyun, Zhiyun, Zhiyun.
It's, Zhiyun.
So a smartphone gimbal, or a phone stabilizer,
is one of the easiest ways to see a big jump in quality of
the output when it comes to shooting high quality videos
on your Android or iPhone device.
Options like the Zhiyun Smooth 4 and DJI Osmo Mobile 2
pack in a ton of functionality,
which were previously only available to more expensive,
professional grade gimbal stabilizers.
But, if you're looking for the best gimbal for
iPhone and Android, then which one is the best one for you?
Zhiyun recently sent us the Smooth 4 to test,
and we got a ton of people asking us to compare it
with the Osmo Mobile 2, so, here it is.
Now, full disclosure, the Osmo Mobile 2
we purchased ourselves.
Zhiyun sent us the Smooth 4 for review,
but we haven't been paid by either party.
As always, we only agreed to the free unit
with our standard terms.
So, we'll cover the good, the bad, the ugly,
and you'll only see our review as released
to the Primal Video community.
So, everything we cover is linked in the description below,
and as always, we've used affiliate links wherever possible.
So now with all that out of the way,
let's jump into the good stuff.
And remember, while you're watching,
just scroll down and let me know in the comments
if you've used either one of these gimbals,
or if you've got another preferred model,
and let us know which one you liked and why.
Once we're done with the review,
make sure you stick around because I'll also share
my top recommended app that we use to get
the most out of any smartphone gimbal.
Now unboxing both of these stabilizers,
both of them come with a hard foam case,
and a USB charging cable.
But the Smooth 4 also comes with a mini tripod,
or some tripod legs that you can screw onto the bottom of
the device and it will free-stand by itself.
So looking at the two unit stands side-by-side,
following on from that,
both of them do have the standard tripod thread on the
bottom so that you can mount them
to things like tripods or even suction mounts.
Both of them will hold and work
with most of the phones available today.
Right from the smaller phones up to the larger phones,
like the Node 8 and the iPhone 8 plus.
The Smooth 4 is just a little bit longer,
and it also weighs just a little bit more as well.
Coming in at around 547 grams compared to
the Osmo's 485 grams.
So really not a huge difference there.
I personally think that the build quality on the Smooth 4
is much higher quality.
Both of them are a plastic build,
but the Osmo Mobile 2 definitely feels cheaper in your hand.
And it's also a big step down in quality
from the original Osmo Mobile, which,
obviously was a lot more expensive unit,
but the quality has definitely dropped quite a lot.
Battery wise, the Smooth 4 has a battery
that will last around 12 hours,
and the Osmo Mobile battery is rated to 15 hours.
So both of them again will last
a really long time for shooting,
but obviously you're going to get more out of the Osmo.
On the actual handle of the grip of the units,
you've got a lot more buttons and a lot more features
in control on the Smooth 4 than you do on the Osmo.
That's really because the Smooth 4 is designed,
you can have all the functionality that you need
to control at your fingertips, or at a button press.
And that way you're not reliant on tapping on
the phone screen and going through menus to find settings
and to configure everything like you are on the Osmo.
So you've got buttons there for menu, display,
you can switch the front camera to rear camera,
you can adjust the exposure, you can also adjust your
shooting mode as well from pan follow to lock mode.
You've also got the trigger on the back of the unit,
which is going to give you faster movements
if you're in pan follow mode,
and also tilt control while you're filming as well.
But, we'll get to that a bit later on.
And obviously, both of the units you can
start and stop the recording,
and you can also take still images as well.
Probably the biggest noticeable difference between the two
is this big wheel on the side of the Smooth 4.
And this wheel can be set to either adjust the focus
for focus pulling, or it can be used to adjust the zoom.
It's actually the first of the only portable stabilizers
for a smartphone to include this on here.
So again, that's all part of having access to
the primary features while you're filming
right at your fingertips.
So then looking at the Osmo Mobile 2,
you do have a zoom in and out function,
or trigger on the side.
On the front you've got a joystick
that you can use to control the gimbal.
You've also got that record button so that you can
start and stop your recordings,
and obviously take photos or stills as well.
You've also got a menu or a mode button which also doubles
as the power on/off button as well.
But what you'll also notice on the Osmo Mobile 2
is that it's very bare beyond that.
So, there's no trigger on the back,
which the previous model had,
which I was actually pretty surprised when I first opened
the box and noticed it wasn't there,
because that was something that I used quite a lot
on the original model.
But also, to be fair, when looking at first impressions,
looking at the Smooth 4, I was pretty surprised that
it didn't have that joystick control that the Osmo does,
and that the previous model Osmo had it as well.
Because that was something that I used quite a lot,
so to not have that,
I thought it was gonna be interesting to see
how you actually control,
what the control would be like on the Smooth 4.
Now both these devices also support phone charging.
They've both got extra ports on there.
You can actually plug in your phone and use those big
batteries in the devices to charge your phone
while you're recording.
But in a real life scenario of using this,
the only way that you can actually get that to work properly
is if you buy a right angle adapter for lightning,
or for USB-C, or whatever plug you've got
on your phone to be able to do that.
Or you need to have your phone mounted
and set up in vertical mode,
giving you access to those ports.
Because if you just have your phone in on landscape mode,
or horizontally, your charging ports, in most cases,
again, depends on the phone you're gonna be using,
will be blocked out by the actual mount.
And if your phone is hard-up against that,
which is where it's designed to be,
then you won't actually have access to those ports.
But both of these devices do support
portrait or vertical video.
So if you're going to be using them for things
like Instagram stories,
then they'll work really well for that.
Okay, so that's a little bit about the two units,
and a couple of the differences and stand out features.
But now, let's take a look at the actual stabilization.
How good are these devices for creating
smooth video footage?
And, how user friendly,
or how good are these devices to actually use?
We're gonna say in all of our testing,
I would say that the quality of the actual stabilization
is almost indistinguishable between the two.
They both do a fantastic job at stabilizing your footage,
whether you're on an iPhone or Android,
whether you're in landscape or whether you're in portrait.
If you just saw some footage shot on either one of them,
you wouldn't be able to pick them apart,
and say, yep, that one was clearly shot on the Smooth 4
and that one was shot on the Osmo.
You would not be able to tell them apart.
So when it comes to which one is the best for
stabilizing your videos,
I would say that they are 100% on par,
and that you won't be able to tell the difference.
Now actual usability and setup of these devices
is really straightforward.
They're almost identical when it comes to balancing
your phone and getting that part of it set up,
turning the device on, and doing some basic filming.
So even if you use the built-in camera app on your device
and didn't even bother installing
any of the additional apps, or the apps that come with it,
then you're gonna be able to get great results
really, really easily.
One of the key standout features for me on the Smooth 4,
is that it's got this lock mode, or sleep mode.
So when you're actually filming with the phone,
the phone's mounted in there,
if you'd want to pause or stop,
you don't actually need to turn the unit off.
You can actually just fold it into place,
fold it down and lock it out,
and it will stay in this sleep mode, or dormant mode,
until you pull it back out.
So that's actually something that I used quite a lot
and was really, really awesome because on
any other stabilizer, you don't have that ability.
And every time you're on a pause or put the device down,
you've got to power off the entire unit,
and then obviously wait for it to power back up
to keep shooting.
And when it comes to actually controlling the device
and moving it around,
I found that the Smooth 4 to be much more responsive,
and it's so much easier to get it pointing where you want
and lock that down and get the shots that you want
with the Smooth 4.
And really the key thing that makes it so simple is the
different shooting modes that you've got direct access to
with the buttons and the triggers on the device.
It's actually also got a third shooting method,
or shooting feature, that you've got,
that you don't have on the Osmo Mobile.
So both of them will have the ability to shoot
in pan follow mode,
which is where wherever you're pointing the gimbal,
or in twisting the gimbal, it's gonna follow along.
Also both have lock mode, where no matter where
you actually move the gimbal,
it's going to stay locked and pointing at whatever
you've got it locked at.
But the additional feature of the additional control that
you get with the Smooth 4,
is using the triggers on the back.
And the top trigger is going to let you
adjust the actual tilt, so the up and down movement.
So when you're not pressing the trigger down,
the actual tilt isn't going to happen.
If you want to be able to tilt it up and down,
then you need to press the trigger.
This is really, really powerful because in a lot of cases
you may not want the tilt element,
and you just want the pan, or the follow,
to be able to move around and get the shots
that you're after.
And then to make in the adjustment to the actual tilt,
to look up a little bit, you just press the trigger,
move it to where you want it, let go of the trigger,
and you're back locked off at that position.
Now, this makes shooting so much more powerful than
with the Osmo because you don't have that feature.
It's either one or the other.
You're totally locked in one direction or one position,
or you're in complete pan follow mode,
which includes the up and down, the tilt as well.
Now coming from the original Osmo Mobile,
which I thought was an awesome unit,
I did get used to that trigger and
love having that trigger there.
Without it on the new version, the Osmo Mobile 2,
it did take a little bit of getting used to.
In order to switch between the modes without the trigger,
you now just have to press the M button on the front
to switch between them.
Now when you are shooting, this is something that you
actually do quite a lot,
you will switch between the lock mode,
and switch between the pan and follow mode quite a lot
as your shot moves or changes,
or as the things that you're shooting change.
Being able to easily switch and change between the modes
is a huge thing,
and it was much easier on the previous version
just to tap the trigger as it is with the Smooth 4,
which you can't do now with the Osmo Mobile 2.
So it's not a huge thing, but usability wise,
I do think it's much, much easier to control,
and to get the shots easier with the Smooth 4.
Another thing you've got with the Osmo Mobile 2
is that joystick control on the front.
So you can use it to move your camera around,
your phone around to get the shots that you want.
And this is something that I did quite a lot
on the Osmo Mobile and when I first looked at the Smooth 4,
I was pretty devastaed that it wasn't there
because that's what I was used to using.
Now after using the Smooth 4 and seeing how you can now
control and lock everything down much easier
with the controls on that,
I didn't actually find the joystick control on the
Osmo Mobile 2 to be actually useful.
It was more frustrating to use than not.
So while I thought this was something
that I would miss on the Smooth 4,
it actually turned out to be something
that really isn't needed.
But, it's also a more cumbersome way to control
and to position the camera and to get the shots
that you want by using it.
So now with both of these units,
in order to get the most out of them,
to get access to all the cool features that they have,
then you need to use their app.
So once you get the app installed and you've paired them up,
both of them were pretty seamless.
The only thing you did need to do with the DJI one
is create an account.
If you don't have one, that's an extra step in the process,
but, once you've got all of that sorted,
the process is pretty much exactly the same.
You open the app, you connect to the device,
and then you get full control over it.
But the biggest things that you get access to
is full control over all the buttons and functionality
on the actual device.
So with the Smooth 4,
that's the ability to switch between
the front camera and the rear camera,
also to use that focus, or that zoom wheel, as well.
That's not going to work on any built in camera app,
it's only going to work inside of their app,
or with their app open.
Exactly the same with the Osmo Mobile 2.
In order to get access to all the extra features
and controls and hyper lapse, and time lapse,
and all those sorts of things,
then you need to be using their app.
This is really where things started to get
interesting between the two.
Both of them, across iPhone and Android,
the apps were pretty unstable,
and I do know that they are releasing updates all the time,
and Zhiyun did reach out to us and say that they do have a
major update coming for their app
to fix some Android issues,
and that they even suggested that we do our testing
with the iPhone.
So we did mix it up, we did use an iPhone 7 plus,
and we did use a Samsung Galaxy S 8 plus
across both of our devices.
And it really didn't make much of a difference.
Both of them worked well, but both of them crashed a lot.
On little things, like setting up a hyper lapse,
or a time lapse.
The experience was actually pretty much the same,
both of them probably crashed the same amount of times.
And neither one of the apps was really
an awesome experience to use.
But if you do want to do things with these devices
like the time lapse, the hyper lapse,
or any of the other cool motion tracking
that you can do with these devices,
then you need to be using their apps.
For the other types of videos you're creating
that aren't reliant on those apps,
I would strongly recommend that you just use the built in
camera apps on your phone, or use something like FiLMic Pro,
or an after market camera app to really lock down those
camera settings and get a good picture out of it,
because the stabilization on both of them is on par,
whether you've got the app open or not.
The only things that you'll be missing by not using the apps
are things like the time lapse, hyper lapse,
and face tracking.
Now, face tracking was one where
the apps made a huge difference.
The face tracking I could not get working
properly on the Smooth 4.
On either iPhone or on Android,
I would draw out an area and it would track me,
for like, maybe 10 seconds, and then, next minute,
the camera would be pointing at the roof.
So, maybe it's just my face,
maybe it's just the objects that I was tracking,
but I couldn't get it to work at all.
Where as, the face tracking or the object tracking
on the DJI Osmo Mobile 2 was awesome, it was spot on.
You can set it up on a tripod and run around in a field,
you can set it up in a training scenario where you're
walking around and teaching people in a room.
But this thing is going to lock on and track you
and follow you.
It's a little creepy, but it's pretty cool.
And, it's going to do a really good job.
So maybe that's something Zhiyun can fix in an update,
but at the moment, for me,
and in all my testing on iPhone and Android,
I couldn't get that working well.
But, it was rock solid and worked pretty damn well
on the Osmo Mobile 2.
Now, one of the big features with the Smooth 4
is that zoom, or focus wheel, on the side of the unit.
Now this is really something that,
while we played around with it and tested,
and yes, it does everything it says it would,
it's probably something that I won't be using
ever in the future.
The biggest reason for it is,
why would you want to zoom in on your footage
if you're filming on a smartphone?
The quality is going to drop quite a lot.
If you can, just move forward.
So, you don't ever want to kick in to digital zoom,
or to be able to zoom in on your shots.
The same as using any camera that doesn't have
proper optical zoom.
And exactly the same with the focus,
because the lenses and the cameras on these phones
are so small and their depth of field really isn't there,
then doing things like pulling focus
and adjusting the focus,
it's not really gonna mimic the same thing that you would
get with a DSLR or a larger camera when you're
changing and adjusting the focus.
So having the feature there could give you
some additional creativity,
depending on the videos you're creating,
but I can say it's probably not something I'm going to be
using in any of the videos that we'll be doing.
I think if we want to zoom in, we'll move in further,
and if we want to focus on something different,
we'll probably just use tap to focus.
Yeah, it's cool that they've added a feature in there,
but I don't think the use case to actually pull it off
professionally is there just yet.
Now I guess the only thing we haven't touched on here
is the price between the two units.
Now, both of them are very similarly priced.
You can currently pick up the Zhiyun Smooth 4 for $139 U.S.,
and the Osmo Mobile 2 is currently selling for $129.
So there's only $10 price difference between the two.
Now, having both of these units,
what is my top recommendation,
which one am I gonna carry with me,
which one am I gonna sit back on the shelf?
Well, for me, it's gonna be the Smooth 4.
I really like the level of control that you've got with all
the buttons on the actual handle, and probably more so,
the level of control that you have over your shot
in locking your shot, the different follow modes,
and locking modes that you've got,
especially with that trigger on the back.
That trigger is an absolute game changer.
And even pressing the trigger down it kicks in another mode
where you're in a super fast mode.
So if you're filming something like motor sport,
or there's lots of quick action,
you need to move the gimbal round fast,
then it's got this fast paced mode all just triggered by
using the trigger on the back of the device as well.
So, for me, hands down, usability it's gonna
go to the Smooth 4.
Now, obviously, if I did have to do something with
object tracking or facial tracking,
then it's going to go hands down to the Osmo Mobile, so,
if you aren't looking for the most amount of control,
but you really want to have all these extra features
in the app, things like object tracking,
then the Osmo Mobile 2 might be for you.
But, I'm sure this is something that Zhiyun can fix
with a firmware update, or hopefully they can,
because then this will make it the overall king by far.
Probably the biggest thing to remember here is that
what these things are both designed to do,
to stabilize your video footage,
they both do an amazing job at that.
And no matter which one that you pick,
if it's purely for that purpose,
then you're not going to be disappointed.
It's the extra features and the extra control that you're
probably going to want to weigh out which one
is the better fit for you.
But for me, it's going to be the Smooth 4.
Now, if you're interested in taking your smartphone videos
to the next level,
then I'd strongly recommend that you get away
from the built in camera apps,
and even the apps that these devices come with,
and kick into something more professional like FiLMiC Pro.
These are going to give you professional level controls
and settings that you can lock down like you would on a DSLR
or even video camera right on your smartphone.
So there's things like your exposure, your shuttle speed,
your white balance.
So you can really dial everything in to get
the look that you're after.
Now if you're interested in trying it out,
or just seeing how simple or powerful it is to use,
then linked on screen is a video running through exactly
how to use it and our favorite features.
And I'll see you soon.