Insta360 has announced its newest 360 camera. It’s the latest in the company’s “X” (formerly “ONE X”) lineup, the Insta360 X4 (buy here). It brings substantial improvements over the Insta360 X3 (buy here), but the company says it’s not a replacement.
It offers 8K 360-degree video and 5.7K at 60fps. It also brings a massively improved battery life of up to 135 minutes. But how well does it perform? I’ve had an X4 here for a few days, so here are my thoughts as we go through the features.
First up, let’s get the sample footage out of the way. There isn’t a lot of it this time around, as the weather here in Scotland has been awful. The Insta360 X4 is waterproof without a dive case to a depth of 10 metres, so I wasn’t afraid for the camera. It just looked awful and wasn’t pleasant to be out in.
We did have a couple of brief breaks, though, so here is some footage below. This is flat footage, reframed and exported in Insta360 Studio to give you some idea of comparisons between the 8K h.265 footage and 5.7K. Most of it is 8K 30fps with some 4K 100fps and a side-by-side comparison of all three towards the end.
The reason for the flat footage above is due to the fact that YouTube doesn’t support 360-degree footage at resolutions higher than 4K. So, uploading a 360-degree video in 8K resolution and having YouTube bring it down back down to 4K would be a waste.
Reframing also allows us to see more standard camera angles and a “normal” field of view. So, we can see how much detail each of the angles often used in vlogs and behind-the-scenes footage captures.
Insta360 X4 – In the box accessories
The Insta360 X4 brings with it the usual assortment of bits. Instead of the neoprene sleeve of the Insta360 ONE X, ONE X2 and X3, it’s a zip-up pouch. I understand the reasons for it, and we’ll get to those in a second, but taking the pouch out of context for a second, I do prefer the neoprene sleeve.
But the reason for the pouch becomes evident when you see that Insta360 included two quick-release, removable lens protectors with the camera. That’s right, they don’t need to be permanently stuck on and then useless once removed anymore. Now you can take them on and off at will, quickly and easily.
And this is why the pouch. On one side of the pouch on the inside are two little slots. These are for the lens protectors to go in when you don’t need to use them.
While they will protect your lenses in hostile conditions, anything in front of your lens will degrade image quality to a degree. So you don’t always want them attached.
On the other side of the zip up case is a slot for the included lens cleaning cloth. I like the pouch, I really do, but when you zip it over a camera that’s attached to a handle, it doesn’t feel as safe and secure as the neoprene pouch of former Insta360 (ONE) X cameras.
Insta360 X4 – Size Matters
Unfortunately, none of the previous cameras’ neoprene pouches fit the Insta360 X4. You can see the cameras here side-by-side, from the original ONE X up to the X4 and the Insta360 ONE RS 1″ Leica 360 Edition (buy here).
You can see the size differences quite easily when comparing them side-by-side. Especially so when you look at the side views of the X lineup.
Despite the slightly larger size of the X4 over the X3, it still fits quite nicely in most pockets. While exploring with the camera myself, I usually put it in the inside pocket of my jacket, and I barely notice it’s there.
And speaking of size, the battery’s capacity has also increased massively over the X3. When shooting 5.7K footage, the battery gives up to two hours and fifteen minutes of use before needing a recharge. If you’re shooting 8K, it drops a bit, but it’s significantly larger than that of the X3.
Removable Lens Guards
This is something that users have wanted for a long time. On my past Insta360 cameras, I haven’t bothered using lens protectors. I’m not doing anything too extreme where the lenses had a significant risk of being scratched, and I didn’t want the hassle.
Putting anything over your lens reduces the quality of the scene it’s looking at. Sometimes, that quality reduction is acceptable in extreme conditions. For me, it wasn’t. So, I just didn’t bother with them.
Insta360 has changed tactics a little with the X4 by including a pair of lens protectors. These sit over the lens on each side of the camera and then just rotate to lock them down. I’ve tended to put these on the camera when storing it in the bag – just in case there are any accidents, and it slips out while unzipping.
Typically, when recording with the camera, the lens protectors are off, the bag is in my pocket, and I’ll use the rubber lens protector over the camera instead. With past X cameras, I would’ve used the neoprene lens pouch, usually, but this works, too.
Accessing the charging port while keeping the camera safe can be difficult with the zip-up pouch of the X4 vs the neoprene pouch of the X3.
Insta360 X4 – Specs Overview
The Insta360 X4 follows the compact form factor of its predecessors, but it’s a little bit chunkier than the X3. Part of this is to house the new, much larger battery. It provides 2,290mAh of storage for up to 135 minutes of battery life.
Over two hours of battery life with any camera this small is pretty much unheard of. It’s worth pointing out that you don’t get that life in all resolutions, however. 8K 30fps video uses up a bit more juice than lower resolutions, but you should get the full two hours and fifteen minutes at 5.7K at 60fps.
It also shoots 4K video at up to 100fps, with 4K Me Mode video at 30fps and 2.7K Me Mode video at up to 120fps. Overall, you get a pretty versatile range of filming options, and the 4K 100fps is actually very good. While not as high resolution, it actually looks slightly cleaner than the 5.7K footage if you don’t need to zoom in too much.
The Insta360 X4 gains gesture control. This feature has been around on the Insta360 Ace Pro (buy here) and Insta360 GO 3 (buy here) for a little while now, but the X3 doesn’t do gesture control. Of course, you still get voice control as well, for those who need it.
8K 30fps and 5.7K 60fps 360-degree video
The big news with the Insta360 X4 is its 8K 360-degree video recording capabilities. And in my tests so far, I haven’t been disappointed. While there are some obvious things that pop out to us – like chromatic aberration around green leaves against bright blue skies – the overall colour and quality are very good.
But with those basics satisfied, how good is 8K footage from this thing? Is it worth stepping up to the higher resolution? Or will you be better off sticking with 5.7K but upping the framerate to 60fps?
Well, I’d say that it largely depends on why you’re shooting 360-degree footage. In an ideal world, we’d get 8K at 60fps, but we don’t have that. Such tech needs to be developed one step at a time, and we’re just not there yet.
But the TL;DR version is that if you largely shoot 360-degree video to reframe and map to flat footage, then I’d say to shoot 8K. But if you’re mostly shooting for viewing back in a headset or something, where it will retain its full 360-degree view, shoot 5.7K at 60fps.
The smoother motion should be less nauseating in a headset than slower, 24fps video with more motion blur. Headaches and feeling sick are the two biggest points of negative feedback I hear when people watch VR for the first time. A higher frame rate and shutter speed help to alleviate this.
If you want even smoother motion or you’re happy to upscale, the X4 also shoots 4K 360-degree video at up to 100fps. And, you’ve got bullet time, where you can spin the camera around your head at 5.7K resolution for short bursts of 120fps.
8K easy to work with on desktop and smartphone
My general use laptop here is a 2018 ASUS ZenBook Pro UX550VD. It’s had no upgrades. It has a fixed 8GB of RAM that I can’t upgrade, a 7th Gen Intel i7-7700HQ quad-core 2.8GHz processor, an NVIDIA GTX 1050 GPU, and a 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Nothing fancy.
Working with the 8K footage inside Insta360 Studio, however, was very easy to do. I experienced no lag at all while working with the footage in Insta360 Studio. Scrubbing footage, adding keyframes and adjusting the type and view of the camera all work pretty smoothly.
[Screenshots of Insta360 Studio]
Note: The beta version of the app that I received to test with the Insta360 X4 does not contain the new multi-clip editing features released in the latest Insta360 Studio update, announced a few days ago. So I still had to render out of Insta360 Studio and edit my final footage in DaVinci Resolve.
Subject tracking in 8K footage from within the Insta360 app also works very well. Scrubbing through the footage backwards using the arrow keys is still quite sluggish at 2-3fps. But it’s always been this way with 360-footage, and it does it at all resolutions. Playing forwards, it’s as smooth as can be.
When it comes to the mobile app, it, too works quite well. I’ve been testing it on the OnePlus 10 Pro. At the time of release, the OnePlus 10 Pro was a high-end flagship smartphone. Now, it’s a couple of generations behind, but it still manages to keep up just fine.
Working with the 8K footage inside the Insta360 app on the OnePlus 10 Pro was as smooth and seamless a process as it has been with the company’s 5.7K cameras. You get a Quick Edit feature for reframing your footage, AI Edit for those who don’t know how to edit their own videos yet, Pro mode for full control, and Shot Lab for creating viral sensations.
There’s a Motion ND feature, allowing you to simulate the look of slower shutter speeds using real ND filters. It works by merging together multiple frames to give that sense of motion across time in a single image. It’s not quite the same as shooting with a real ND filter, but it’s close enough for social media.
When combined with the TimeShift feature, it makes for some convincing motion blur. There are still some telltale signs in certain shots, but mostly it doesn’t make itself stand out as an effect in post.
Me Mode goes 120fps
One new feature introduced with the Insta360 X3 was Me Mode. This allows you to record just a portion of the whole view at 60fps. It was essentially a way to shoot footage of the camera always tracking you, no matter the angle or rotation of the camera.
It’s very handy when you just want to film a perspective looking back at you as you do whatever activity it is you’re doing. I often use it for short clips while hiking, especially over rough terrain as it can produce some interesting shots.
The Insta360 X4 takes Me Mode and bumps its frame rate up to 120 frames per second. If you create your regular flat video files at 24p, 120fps lets you slow it down to 1/5th of regular speed. And if you’re doing something a bit more extreme, slowing the footage down this much can make for some very cool shots.
FlowState & Horizon Lock
As usual, the Insta360 X4 features Insta360’s FlowState stabilisation technology. It was one of the first 360-degree video stabilisation techniques I saw that actually worked well on its first release. Since then, it’s improved even further to produce very stable footage.
Of course, ultimate stability will depend on the shooting conditions. FlowState and other stabilisation can’t remove motion blur that’s baked into the frame, so you’ll still want bright conditions where possible to get faster shutter speeds.
Horizon Lock, too, has been in Insta360’s cameras for a little while now. The ability to turn it on and off at will has become a more commonly used feature for me than I expected.
Sometimes, you want it off to simulate the look of a drone or vehicle banking as it turns, and you’ll turn it off. At other times, you want that horizon as level as possible throughout your shots, so you’ll turn it on.
Both work extremely well in the X4 with very little wobbling at all.
72-megapixel 360-degree Photos
Like the Insta360 X3, the Insta360 X4 shoots 72-megapixel still images. I haven’t been able to do a full comparison of these yet, as the pre-production firmware I’m using doesn’t appear to allow DNG raw file export.
So, the image below has been exported out of Insta360 Studio as a JPG file. I wasn’t able to capture many still images during the brief breaks in the rain, but I’ll probably experiment with stills a little more in-depth once it can export DNG.
As mentioned earlier, you do see some chromatic aberration around areas of high contrast (green leaves against a bright sky), but those can be cleaned up fairly easily by Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw once DNG files become available in the camera.
11K Timelapse
The Insta360 X3’s 72-megapixel resolution allowed the camera to produce 8K timelapse internally. Although the Insta360 X4 stills resolution hasn’t increased, its timelapse resolution has. It’s gone up to 11K, allowing for more detail and reframing options in post.
It’s worth pointing out that you can actually shoot 12K timelapse on both the Insta360 X3 and X4 if you do it as an image sequence. This process is a bit long-winded, as there’s a lot of exporting and processing before you even get it into your video editor.
AI Gesture Control & Voice Commands
Gesture control isn’t something I typically use on action cameras and 360-degree cameras. But they can be very useful, especially when you need to put your camera somewhere tricky. If you have to manually start and stop it each time for video, you’re wasting a lot of space. And setting timers for stills can sometimes be impossible.
Using gesture controls allows you to set the camera up, step back, act like a Jedi and wave your hands about a bit to control it.
As well as offering some range, it means that motorcyclists and others who wear gloves won’t need to remove their gloves whenever they want to hit a button to start and stop recording. They can just hold up their hand to the camera, and away they go.
Voice commands aren’t something I typically use, either, but they can be very handy. If your camera’s set up in a quiet location where it can easily hear you, voice commands will let you control it from a distance.
Of course, you’ve still got the usual control via the touchscreen and various buttons on the camera itself, and you can always fire up the Insta360 app on your smartphone, too.
Insta360 X4 isn’t an X3 replacement
Insta360 didn’t tell me much on this topic, although they did say that the Insta360 X4 is not technically a replacement model for the Insta360 X3. The Insta360 X3 will continue to be sold alongside the X4 for a discounted price.
And this discounted price has already happened. Insta360 has knocked $50 off the regular retail price of the X3 now, bringing it down to $399. Insta360 has announced that this is a permanent change.
Now, whether they’ll be sold together while stocks last or the company will continue to make X3 cameras is currently unclear. We’ve reached out to Insta360 for a little more clarification on this, but it sounds like the two cameras are being aimed towards different markets.
The Inxta360 X4 is objectively better than the X3 in just about every respect. Except, it’s a little larger and heavier than the X3. This might make it difficult for certain fast-action setups. Heavier cameras can cause more wobble in the footage and put more strain on your 1/4-20″ threads.
So, depending on how you’ve rigged your camera for shooting, the lighter X3 might be a better option. Of course, I expect we’ll start to see metal cages from SmallRig and Ulanzi fairly soon for more secure fixturing.
With the X3 now being a little cheaper than it was in the past, it’s also a lot easier to replace than the X4 if you kill it. And if your primary concern is shooting footage 360-degree footage, you might not notice much difference between the two.
Flat footage for things like Shorts, Reels, Stories, etc., likely won’t look any different due to the small screen sizes. And if you’re uploading 360-degree footage to YouTube, you’re limited to 4K anyway.
Summary
Regardless of whether Insta360 considered the X4 and X3 replacement or not, should we consider it a replacement? Well, yes and no. It really depends on your needs. As I mentioned above, some users may experience no benefit of the X4 over the X3 and for those users, it’s worth sticking with the X3 – or buying the X3 if you don’t have one yet to save a little money.
But if you do a lot of reframing, particularly on the desktop – where you have more advanced post-processing options – the X4 is very much an upgrade. For my own 360 needs, I typically use the Insta360 X3 and Insta360 ONE RS 1″ Leica 360. Generally, this is for shooting behind-the-scenes footage or location-scouting photos while out exploring.
Of those two, I find that the ONE RS 1″ 360 gives me cleaner 5.7K video footage, but the X3 has the advantage of 72-megapixel DNG raw still images. So, I take both depending on my needs. The X4 is immediately replacing the ONE RS for general video use.
It will also replace the X3 once it can save out those 72-megapixel images as DNG files. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long for that firmware update to come – and it might even be available by the time this review is published.
This means I’ll only need to carry one camera around with me for most of what I shoot. There are times when the light is lower, and the ONE RS will be the better choice. But other than that, the X4 covers all of my 360-camera needs. The rest are just backups.
Whether or not it will cover your needs really boils down to you and what those needs are. Will the improvements in the X4 over the X3 really make a difference to the photos and footage you produce? Are they really of benefit to you?
If they are, it’s worth it. If they’re not, it’s not.
Editor’s note: The unit reviewed here was running preproduction firmware. Everything that was there seems to work but there were one or two notable omissions (like DNG RAW stills). I expect they should be ready in the launch firmware or shortly afterwards. I’m also looking forward to seeing how well the new Insta360 Studio app with multi-clip editing works once it supports X4 footage.
Price and Availability
The Insta360 X4 is available to pre-order now, starting at $499 for the basic camera package. It’s also available in a number of other kits with various accessories tailored to specific needs and use cases.
