The new 1800 mAh battery will give you a good shooting time. I recorded over 1.5 hours in 4K. Insta360 claims to shoot 5.7K video at 30p for 81 minutes, based on my testing. It’s worth noting that the larger battery and other changes make the X3 a bit heavier, but I still found it quite comfortable to carry and not too heavy at the top of the selfie stick.
As I’ve noted in other Insta360 cameras, the company’s FlowState stabilization compares very well to anything else on the market, including GoPro. When applied to 360 footage I sometimes noticed a bit of a shimmer effect, especially around the seams where the video was stitched together, but it’s not hard to mitigate this by making sure the subject Your main is still in the middle.
Please note that while the video quality here is impressive, the 5.7K isn’t nearly as sharp when spread across the spherical panorama as it is when you shoot with a traditional single wide lens, covering about 160 degree. This won’t be very noticeable when you’re viewing your footage in the Insta360s app (or other 3D video player), but when you export the video to a traditional flat format player like YouTube, you’ll only get 1920 x 1080 resolution video (to output a “flat” video in 4K, you need to shoot 360 footage at 12K).
That said, the only camera I’ve used to make 1080p retouched video look better is the much more expensive 1-inch One RS Edition I talked about above. The X3 produces really impressive video, especially when you keep in mind that it’s a camera that’s easy to hold with one hand. If you want maximum resolution, the X3 is capable of 8K time-lapse video recording, which looks great, even exporting to a flat format.
Good on Go
As with the company’s other cameras, the X3 connects to Insta360’s mobile editing app, which remains one of the best I’ve used. No, it’s not Final Cut Pro, but for an app that runs on your phone that’s impressive.
Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can figure out keyframes, jumps, and other edits thanks to the built-in tutorials. There are also a number of automated editing tools, including a nose cam, sky swap, and street photography, all of which are fun to use. But what impressed me the most about the app were those tutorials. Honestly, even if you don’t own an Insta360 camera, the app is worth browsing just for the tutorial info. For those who want something more powerful than a phone for editing, Insta360 also offers a desktop-based editor for Mac and Windows.
If 360-degree video is your thing, the new X3 represents the best value camera on the market right now. The Insta360’s 1-inch One RS version produces better results, but it costs $800 more than the X3 at $450. If you mostly shoot action scenes and occasionally switch to 360 degrees, the One RS is probably a better choice (if nothing else, it’s much easier to attach to a helmet). But for anyone who loves 360-degree footage and wants to try their hand at action shots, this is the camera to get.
