I’m gonna level with you, one of the best things about being a tech reviewer is that
sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, companies will offer to send you items for
free, and you get to review them and then keep them, it’s a perk of the job that comes
from building a channel like this.
I’ve had some stuff over the past year, things like security cameras and microphones,
and it’s cool playing around with them, but nothing has been as much fun to use as
this, the Insta360 Go 2, this tiny little camera here that you can see, and it can actually
see you, there you are if I cut to the view from this camera, that’s you there.
So I’ve been playing around with this camera as much as possible over the past month, and
in this video I’m going to let you know what I think of it.
Full disclosure, Insta360 did send me this camera plus some accessories at no cost to
myself, but they’re not sponsoring this video, they won’t have visibility of this
review before it goes live, all thoughts here in this video are entirely my own.
OK, let’s get into it.
The Camera
Let’s start by talking about what this is.
This is a tiny action camera capable of recording up to 1440p resolution at 50 frames per second,
with an ultrawide lens, not a 360, this can’t see all the way around you, but it gets an
extremely wide view of what’s out in front of the camera.
It’s waterproof up to a depth of 4 metres, it has FlowState stabilisation to help keep
footage nice and smooth regardless of what you’re doing with it, and it’s got modes
for doing cool things like Hyperlapses and slow motion video.
So far, so good, but not all that different from the many other action cameras out there,
so you might be asking what it is that makes this such a joyful camera to use.
Well, like I mentioned already, it’s the frankly ridiculous size and weight of this
thing, and all of the creative opportunities that this gives you.
If we take the camera by itself, I’ll come back to the charge case in just a moment,
it’s about 5cm tall and about 2cm in both width and depth, it’s so small that I’ve
struggled to find good comparable items to show you, but I can put it next to things
like a credit card, I can put it next to my Apple Watch, I’ve got this photo I took
where I’ve got it next to a couple of Haribo sweets, you get the idea.
It’s also extremely light, 26.5g or just under 1 ounce, and I think it’s that size
and weight combination that’s key when it comes to mounting this thing.
You don’t get much to go on with the camera itself, the front is literally just the lens
and a small LED, the rear is a large and pretty powerful magnet with a connector for the charge
dock, so the camera by itself is literally the definition of point and shoot, you’ve
got this very subtle Insta360 logo here at the bottom of the camera, and if you push
that in slightly, the camera will begin recording in whatever mode you’ve currently got the
camera set to.
There’s obviously no screen here to look at on the camera, but the way that I’ve
found myself using this is to just leave it in Pro Video mode all the time, and I know
that each time I hit that button, it’s going to start recording, and when I hit it again,
it will stop.
The Charge Case is also included in the box, and this is a multipurpose tool that you’re
definitely going to want to carry around with you, although you can use the camera independently
from it if you like.
Slot the camera into the charge case, and the magnets will snap it neatly into place,
and the onboard battery will begin charging the camera.
Insta360 claim that you can get around 30 minutes of use with the camera by itself,
but then the case carries essentially another 2 and a half hours worth of charge, so if
you were taking this with you to say a theme park or to the beach or somewhere where you
might be spending the day, provided you’re always shooting in bursts and provided you’re
always putting the camera back into the case, you should have more than enough to capture
everything you like.
Storage wise, this is the 64gb model, it also comes in a 32gb model, and all of that storage
is internal, you can’t upgrade with a MicroSD or anything like that.
You can film using the case if you want, you just slot the camera into the case and connect
wirelessly by pushing the button, this caught me out the first time I was using it, I assumed
that the physical connection would do the trick, but the physical connection seems to
be used for charging only, all data connections between the case and the camera are wireless,
with the case then acting as a remote control, with a range of up to 10 metres.
Flip the little legs out at the rear of the case and you’ve got a neat little self-standing
vlogging setup, more on vlogging a little later on in the video, and you’ve got this
tiny little display which, along with the two buttons underneath, you’ll use to change
the camera mode, or navigate through the menu and change settings.
It looks difficult, but it’s actually dead easy once you understand that the white button
is the menu button, and red button is your ‘yes’ button, essentially.
You’ve also got a screw mount at the bottom of the case, and a USB C port for charging,
you do get a USB C cable included in the box.
OK, let’s talk mounts for a moment, and I’ll start by discussing the ones that are
included in the standard box.
You get the magnet pendant which I absolutely love, this is a strong magnet on a necklace
that you can either wear around your neck and hide under clothes, or you could do like
I did recently and slip this into a front facing coat pocket on a cold but sunny day.
The magnet is strong enough that the camera will then attach to it through a layer of
clothing like a tee shirt, jumper or jacket, and you can then walk or run around with it
and honestly just forget that it’s there.
You’ve got the Easy Clip which tilts and pivots, and can be used to clip to something
like the peak of a baseball cap or something else thin, this isn’t a clamp so if you’re
after that you might have to pick up something else, I bought one of these on Amazon for
about £5 and it clamps to pretty much anything.
Again, attach it, slot the camera in and forget all about it.
You’ve got the Pivot Stand which comes with both a sticky, washable base that you can
use to stick to glass like a car window for example, and a lanyard wrist attachment, and
it can, as the name suggests, pivot in pretty much any angle, so you could hand hold this
on a waterslide or a rollercoaster or any number of other things, and you know that
you’re not going to lose it thanks to the lanyard.
The magnets by the way on all of these attachments are unbelievably strong, the ‘snap’ you
feel when the camera jumps into them gives you the confidence that there’s no way the
camera’s going to come falling out of the mount.
Insta360 did send me some additional accessories, looking on the website I believe they sent
me the All Purpose kit which includes a number of other items.
You don’t need these, but they do help increase your options when it comes to getting the
perfect shot with this thing, but I just wanted to make it clear that these items aren’t
included in the standard box.
As well as everything I’ve already mentioned, you’re also getting an extendable selfie
stick, three more mounts including this screw on mount which is excellent, as well as a
couple of GoPro mount adaptors, and a really nice little case to store everything in.
Insta360 also offer a number of kits that don’t include everything, but include specific
items for things like bikes and snowboards.
You also get three lens guards, one already included on the camera and then two additional
ones, and these are great, if the lens guard that’s installed ever gets scratched or
damaged, I can just unscrew it and fit one of the spares that I’ve got in my kit bag.
Don’t use it without the lens guards by the way, if you damage the lens, you’re
looking at a new camera.
And it’s with these accessories that you can really start to push this camera and get
some fun footage out of it.
Take the pendant and go about your daily business and you’ve got a cool little POV vlogging
mode as you’re walking out to your car or walking around a city.
The same with the clip, put it on your cap and you’ve got a view that’s more eye-level.
Screw this accessory onto the selfie stick, extend the stick, and you can hang this down
from the side of a boat or, carefully, put it out of the window of a car, or hold it
up really tall to get an almost drone like shot.
I’ve got a similar shot by carefully pinching this accessory using the car window, and got
some cool footage of driving our car.
What’s great is that, thanks to the software you’re going to use to export the footage,
you don’t have to have the camera facing perfectly level or anything like that, you
can have the camera facing upright, or sideways, or at a wonky angle upside down, and so long
as the lens is facing in the direction that you want to capture, the software will generally
work out where the horizon is, and have the footage automatically calibrated for you.
And let’s talk about that for a moment, you’ve got two options for getting footage
off of this camera and onto your devices, you can either connect via USB C cable to
your computer and use the desktop software, which is what I’ve generally been doing,
or you can download the Insta360 app to your phone and remotely transfer the content, then
edit it there.
And this is where I think it gets really clever, as you can take the very wide footage that
your camera has captured, and have the software create footage that’s suitable for widescreen
platforms like YouTube, or square content like Instagram’s feed, or vertical footage
like Instagram Reels and YouTube stories, all from the same original footage.
It’s essentially taking the thought process out of capturing content, and allowing you
to create something that looks good with what you’ve captured.
In the iPhone app for example, I can trim the footage, play around with the various
colour and exposure settings, and see how the footage would look in the various aspect
ratios.
You can also use the app as a remote control for the camera if you like, and for that you
do get a preview, so if you’re setting up a shot and you could do with an idea of how
it’s going to look, this could work for you.
Footage
OK, I’ve talked plenty about what this is and how it works, I’m going to give you
my thoughts on the camera, but before I do, here’s some footage that I’ve compiled
over the last month.
My verdict
In researching for this video, I watched a few other video reviews for this camera, and
one of the things that I heard time and time again was a complaint about the video quality.
And, yeah, I get it, when I first pulled the boat footage that you just saw onto my computer
to begin rendering it out, there was a little part of me that was a bit deflated at how
the footage looked.
But, I was forgetting a couple of important points.
The first is that I was viewing the footage here at my desk, on my work setup, my Pro
Display XDR.
This is a 6K display, and I was looking at the footage in full screen.
This camera captures 1440p, which is better than 1080p, but not at the level of 4K, so
it’s probably no great surprise that I felt the footage was lacking sharpness, when watching
here on a 6K panel.
But also, this camera isn’t being designed to replace your professional camera, or even
your phone, it’s designed to exist alongside them.
This is the camera that you take with you on a boat trip, that you take with you to
Universal Studios, that you take jetskiiing, or clip to your helmet when you’re going
snowboarding.
Or, if you’re a bit less of an adrenalin junkie, it’s the camera that you take with
you to the beach when you’re playing with your kids, or you strap it to your dog, or
your toddler, or you clip it to the side of your rental car or any number of fun, interesting
things that you simply wouldn’t be able to do with something like your DSLR or your
even your smartphone, without an expensive rig and an insurance policy for it it all
goes wrong.
This is literally the camera for the person who has said “I wonder what it would look
like if I...”, because now you can find out how it would look, and because it’s
so small and so light and has so many different mounting options, you can be up and running
in seconds, so you’re not going to miss the moment.
And of course, my Pro Display XDR is not the place where most people consume their content
these days.
Most of it is consumed on phones, small screens, maybe in landscape, but often in vertical,
and honestly, the footage off of this camera in good lighting conditions looks amazing
on your phone.
It does struggle a bit in low light, but you kind of have to expect that, so if you’re
taking this to a bar or a club and thinking you’re going to get amazing lowlight footage,
you might be disappointed.
But in literally any kind of daylight conditions, you’re basically good to go.
Oh, and the final thing I wanted to mention was vlogging, as I’ve seen some reviews
criticise this as a vlogging camera, and I honestly don’t get it.
Here’s some vlogging footage
I shot the other day.
*Pause*
That’s the video, but just as importantly, the audio quality from this tiny little camera,
which I’m holding just out in front of me in the charge case, and I think it’s excellent,
personally.
I’d be more than happy to watch a vlog with that kind of audio quality throughout, and
it’s literally something you could have in your pocket with you throughout the day,
and grab it when you need it.
Conclusion
So, if you haven’t already figured it out, I really like this camera.
It’s not perfect.
The video quality doesn’t stand up to scrutiny once you get all the way up to 4K or 6K panels,
but like I said earlier, that’s the wrong use case for this.
I did also experience a few connection issues with the charging case, but the fix is dead
easy, you just restart both units by holding down their respective shutter buttons for
7 seconds, and that reboots both the case and the camera, and then everything seems
to pair up nicely.
I’ve had to do this maybe 3 times in the past month, and I’m hoping future firmware
upgrades will make it even less of a necessity.
I like this camera, not because it’s technically flawless because it’s not, but because it’s
fun.
It’s the first piece of tech that I’ve used in ages that has made me, and other people
I’m with when I’m using it, genuinely smile.
It’s made me creative, it’s made me constantly be on the lookout for how I might use it.
I’ll definitely be sneaking the occasional bit of footage from this camera into my future
videos by the way, so keep an eye out for it.
If you want the most technically capable action camera out there, you might need to look at
something like the just-released Insta360 One RS, which I’ll hopefully be reviewing
soon.
But if you want a camera that’s about the size of a human thumb, that has unlimited
mounting options and can capture footage that will genuinely make you smile with how much
fun it is, then get the Insta360 Go2.
Purchasing directly from Insta360 is dead easy, and I’ve included a link in the description
where you can get your’s.
What do you think?
Would you consider an Insta360 Go2?
If not, what would you get instead?
Or have you got one, and if so, how are you using it?
Drop me a comment, and let’s talk about it.
And as ever, if you found this video useful, do please consider leaving me a like, and
subscribing to my channel for more content like this in the future.
See you on the next video.