Insta360 X3 Snow Kit – Waterproof 360° Action Camera

 

I bought the Insta360 X3 over another popular action-cam brand because I wanted to be able to record video without having to worry about getting the action in the frame, the Insta360 having 360 degrees of vision will capture all action regardless of the direction of where the camera is facing – perfect!
The immediate thought when I first set eyes upon the camera was ‘wow, nicely made!’. The physical quality of the device is certainly good with a nice feeling to the plastic housing and even the screen has a ‘hard’ sort of feeling to it, as though it should be able to take some mild abuse from scratchy mucky fingers and the like.
The screen response is crisp and almost totally lag free along with the image that is both bright and high resolution. It is touch screen controlled and responds to gestures such as swipes and presses etc to navigate the menus along with some real-life buttons (yey!) that are easy to press and have enough feed-back that you know that you’ve actually pressed them. There is a coloured LED on both sides of the camera so you know if it is in a recording or standby state.
Battery life is generally very good, I know some complain about the 80 minutes (approx) recording time but bearing in mind the decent screen, two image sensors and the physical size of the camera and battery which aren’t that big really, then I think that the battery lasts really well with all things considered – spare batteries are available and I don’t think they are badly priced compared to other similar devices.
Image quality is very good, not amazingly good – but still very decent indeed! The videos are 5.7K or whatever but in reality because of the nature of the 360 degree image – what you will see on your screen will be 1080p, the 5.7K refers to the total of the whole image being captured in every direction, not the reduced image size that you will view with a monitor or TV.
The app and PC software are both fairly quick and easy to use with plenty of editing options. I prefer to use my PC to edit and output to Premiere Pro or After Effects but the phone app is also extremely powerful and both pieces of software are extremely quick to process and output files.

So, why four stars then rather than 5?
Ok, I’m taking many things into consideration here:

The video output after editing at the highest resolution is adequate but it is clearly not 4K quality. If the environment lighting isn’t bright enough (such as in a forest or shaded area etc) then the image quality looks more like 720p because of the ISO grain. Don’t even think about using the HD option if the light isn’t good as the frame rate will also take a large hit (which is most undesirable!).
In brighter conditions the recorded image is very good indeed, almost as good as the other action camera brands but with a mega 360 degree image – which is incredibly good, it really is! (just stay in the sun shine!)
Sound is good as long as there is no wind at all and you are fairly close to the camera body. The 360 stereo effect is great if you walk around the camera talking (or playing music etc)

Maybe this will be a bit of a ‘mute’ point but I’m giving a honest review here: The menu system is great, clear and easy to navigate – but I don’t like the way that options only appear depending on the mode that you are in. So, if you want to take a 360 video for example, then select either normal or HD video mode – all the options and settings that will be available will be only for the selected mode. Now, want to take a still photo? Select photo mode and all the options and settings will be for the photo only – as that is the mode the camera is in.
I use far more expensive cameras, all have global options so that the setting menu is segregated into photo, video, time-lapse etc etc so that all the settings are in one place, all can be adjusted from the main settings menu so that everything can be viewed and easily navigated. I find that on the Insta360 with the relative settings only being available within each mode – this is long winded to less intuitive to make adjustments. Yes I know, want to adjust a photo mode, select photo and go into the setting etc – but I’d rather have all the settings in one place regardless of the mode the camera is set to.
The last point is if the camera is is standby mode, as in it isn’t in recording mode and has sat idle for a few minutes – be very careful that when you press the record button that the the LED turns red to indicate that it is actually recording. I’ve had a couple of issues that I awaken the device by pressing the record button to find that a recording wasn’t initiated – this was because the camera makes a ‘beep’ noise on awakening so be mindful that you may need to press ‘record’ twice to actually set the camera to record. (check for the red LED every time!)

To conclude:

The good:
The Insta360 X3 is a well made action camera with 360 degrees of vision – it makes capturing incredible moments an absolute breeze as it can see everything in all directions at the same time, amazing! The video it produces is easy to edit with the included software and it will look very decent as long as the lighting is good.
The image stabilisation is absolutely mind blowingly amazing, really it is that good!
Battery life is perfectly fine, buy and carry a spare but you won’t be changing it excessively in my opinion.
File sizes are not excessive compared to professional cameras, take a few Micro SD cards if you are worried but generally one decent 128gb card will suffice for most days out.

The Bad:
Image and video quality in bad (shadowed) lighting will be fairly poor, it will be grainy and look poor resolution. Avoid dark areas at all costs!
The sound quality, though far better than previous generations and even better than some popular alternative cameras can be a bit ‘hit and miss’ depending on the amount of wind/air movement.
I’ve not mentioned the ‘invisible selfie stick’ yet – yes, it does work great, exactly as advertised but bear in mind that it is quite flexible at full extension. It is not suitable in any way to be used with part of a mountain bike bracket or similar due to the inherent flex in the extensions. If you are going to mount the Insta360 X3 on a mountain bike then use only a hard fixed bracket or chest mount – let the amazing image stabilisation look after the rest. For ‘drone’ type shots, use the selfie stick but only on fairly bump free ground or at low levels of extension.

Would I recommend?
Yes, it’s one of the best 360 cameras on the market at the moment in 2023 – give it good lighting and you’ll be very happy with it.