- [Announcer] The Vision Council sponsored this video.
(upbeat music)
- Fun fact, I started my first YouTube channel
with my dad over a decade ago
and for those first few years, we built it mainly
on the back of cameras like this.
In a world before quality smartphone cameras
and before Sysco came along to purchase
and then discontinue this product line,
it was little camcorders like the Flip Video
that helped wean people off video tapes
and onto YouTube.
Flash forward to 2019 and the camera I'm using
to show you this relic is what you might call
the new generation of Flip Video.
It's from DJI, the company you might know
as the make of all those drones I keep crashing.
Maybe that's why DJI didn't send me a review sample
of one of these but that's okay.
The Mobile Nation's Team bought a handful of them
to help cover CES back in January
and I've been using it ever since,
well, sort of.
More on that in a second.
The question is, after all that time,
is the Osmo Pocket worth it?
Well, first off, if you have even an ounce
of gadget lust in you,
you'll probably fall for this hardware.
In person, it's even smaller than it looks.
If you're buying it to take the place
of a smartphone gimbal,
well, just look how tiny.
The camera is gyro stabilized across three axis
and this being DJI, that gimbal is pretty amazing,
keeping the scene steady.
Obviously there's a limit to that,
you're still gonna get a little bounce
from walking and shooting
but it's reliable and it's idiot proof.
If the camera's rolling, the the gimbal is doing its job.
It also comes with at a great little carrying case
so you don't have to worry bout screwing up the gimbal
when it's in your pocket or in your bag.
The camera's easy to operate, too,
even if you're not great at rule number one.
The tiny touch screen offers a few settings on its own
and if you plug the camera into your smartphone
with the included adapter, you get a lot more functionality.
Including the ability to manual steer the gimbal.
You'll notice a few times in this video,
I will use an accessory to do that but it costs extra.
The reason I do that is generally speaking,
it's a lot more ergonomic to shoot
with the camera by itself.
You can recenter the gimbal with a double click
of one of those two buttons
and switch to selfie mode with a triple click.
(chuckling) Maybe you can already see
where my first complaint is gonna come in.
The field of view on this lens is only 80 degrees.
So for blogging, be prepared to stretch your arm a bit
unless you wanna pull a Mangeli.
The effect is exaggerated by the postage stamp display
but the camera also crops in even further
in some shooting modes like slow-mo.
So, 130 degree field of view GoPro, this is not.
And just so we don't have to come back to GoPro,
I'll say it here, that company's HERO7
is waterproof down to 33 feet
without the need for a housing.
DJI has teased a waterproof case for the Osmo Pocket
but at press time it wasn't available for purchase.
Now sure, the HERO7 doesn't have the fancy gimbal
of the Osmo Pocket but its electronic stabilization
is incredible.
Now, DJI has a ton of experience making solid hardware
which I pretty much immediately put to the test
on day one of using it.
You've probably notice those little dings on the casing,
it's because I accidentally skipped it across
and asphalt parking lot.
And it still works just as well as it always did.
The footage you're seeing in this review
is a mix of samples across
several different software versions,
even the earlier ones had more than enough quality
to contribute to videos
like my review of the Hyundai Kona AV.
It's still a tiny camera, so don't expect miracles
in low light.
But with resolution options up to 4K60
and slow motion up to 120 frames a second,
you've got versatility and quality
across a pretty wide range of formats.
And I do love the automatic face and object tracking, too.
So again, yeah, gadget lust, satisfied.
And all that's well and good in a vacuum,
but folks from personal experience,
ever since mid February, the Osmo Pocket
has mainly sat unused in my bag.
If I need specialty equipment,
the GoPro HERO7 have proven itself
a great action camera.
And the rest of the time, I'm suing smartphones.
The Google Pixel 3 offers stabilization
that's nearly as good.
The iPhone 10S has remarkably well balanced video.
If phones from LG, HUAWEI, and Samsung have wide,
ultra wide and telephoto options for framing.
And if you want similar FOV options on the others,
you can buy third-party lenses.
All of the phones I just mentioned are water
and dust resistant.
And because they're phones,
you can do things like live stream
and wirelessly upload footage
without he need for an accessory.
Still going, some smartphones have
more slow motion options, too.
Sony and Samsung offer bursts up to 960 frames a second
and look, for the most part,
those smart phones have camera software that's reliable.
It's gotten better over time
but I seldom have been more frustrated
than when dealing with DJI software.
I couldn't even update the Osmo Pocket successfully
the first time.
It brought back horrible memories
of setting up the Spark.
Another good example, plug this camera
into another device and half the time
it will try to charge that other device
instead of the other way around.
And then there are the issues everyone reported on
even at the height of the hype.
The difficulty the camera has in maintaining auto focus
on a subject and, as you can hear,
the sub-par auto quality.
Despite my complaints, the Osmo Pocket
definitely has a place in the market,
I can easily see it in the tool box of film makers
or established YouTubers.
By established I mean people who have the budget
to drop not just $350 on the camera
but also the $109 extra for the gimbal control knob
and the base and the mount.
All of which you want, take it from me.
So, it's a solid camera with impressive technology
it's just for a small subset of customers.
Everyone else should probably
just stick with their smartphone or their GoPro.
The days of the Flip Video are over for a reason.
Folks, stick with me through the break
and I'll tell you which phone camera
I'm most looking forward to this season.
If you're like me,
you spend most of your day
in front of some kind of screen.
In fact, the average working American
stairs at screens for almost eight hours a day.
Something our eyes weren't designed to do.
It's no wonder that over half of Americans
report symptoms of digital eye strain
from blurry vision, to neck pain, to headaches.
So when The Vision Council offered to send over
some URock glasses from modern optical
with lenses from ZIESS Group,
I felt like I was taking an overdue step to,
you know, save my eyeballs.
And it doesn't hurt that they look pretty great, too.
The Vision Council sponsored this video,
for more information on digital eye strain,
check out the link in the description below.
Camera teaser time, at the end of March
I will be in Paris for the launch
of the HUAWEI P30 smartphone
and I'm really hoping that HUAWEI,
which has done a ton of work on its still photography,
applies that same effort to its video side this time around.
Frankly, it's never been the company's strong suit,
so, I'm crossing my fingers.
Also, coming up before the end of March,
a Nokia 9 PureView review, stay tuned for that.
And let me know what you use,
whether it's a DJI Osmo Pocket
or a GoPro or just your smartphone.
Drop a line in the comments,
subscribe to The Mr. Mobile on YouTube
and visit me on Instagram at the same handle.
Until next time, thanks for watching
and stay mobile, my friends.
(upbeat music)