Insta360 X3 review: The name has changed but it's still the one

Insta360 has had a rented year, introducing multiple modular options to its One RS family as well as the Link webcam, which surprised us recently. Now, though, it's time for one of its most popular 360 cameras to get an update.

The Insta360 X3 is the successor to the best-selling One X2, but, for this model, the visitor has decided to transpiration things up and remove "One" from the branding. It makes sense, considering the brand's modular offerings moreover fall under the One moniker, maybe going forward it will refer to those modular devices exclusively.

Despite the name change, the camera's heritage is plain to see, and it retains the same practical snacks bar form factor as previous generations. Elsewhere, there are plenty of changes to be found, so, let's take a squint and see what the latest 360 camera brings to the table.

Design

• Dimensions: 114 x 46 x 33.1mm
• Weight: 180 grams
• 2.29-inch touchscreen display
• Waterproof up to 10 metres

The most immediately noticeable transpiration is the presence of a sizable touchscreen display, which replaces the circular exhibit seen on the One X2. While the quirky circular exhibit certainly had some charm, this increasingly traditional rectangular exhibit is infinitely easier to use.

This new screen gives the device a somewhat nostalgic squint that reminds us of the stocky phones of the early 2000s. Of course, the bulbous lenses protruding on either side quickly dispel that illusion, as does the rear of the device, which very much resembles its predecessor.

The Insta360 X3 has four buttons, two on the side and two underneath the display. On the side, there's a power sawed-off and a quick menu button. The quick menu allows you to wangle custom preset modes and is an spanking-new way to quickly switch between your favourite shooting options. Under the exhibit is a record sawed-off and a lens selection button. Tapping the lens sawed-off switches between full 360 capture and single lens capture on either the outer or inner camera.

There's a tripod thread on the wiring which allows for compatibility with a huge range of accessories, and it can moreover be hands well-timed to work with GoPro-style mounts. On the opposite side to the buttons, you'll find a water-sealed flap that protects the USB-C port, withal with a removable 1800mAh shower that fills a significant portion of the camera's frame.

To wangle the microSD vellum slot, you first have to remove the battery, which is a little odd. In practice, though, it's a fairly quick and easy process. The only downside to this diamond is that you definitely won't be hot-swapping cards, you'll need to power lanugo the camera surpassing the process.

Software and features

• Insta360 app on iOS and Android, Insta360 Studio on desktop
• 360 and single lens recording modes
• AI-powered editing and ShotLab templates

The Insta360 X3 uses the same spanking-new software as its other cameras, and we think it's a strong selling point for all of the brand's offerings. It's easy unbearable for just well-nigh anyone to get to grips with, so long as they have a sufficiently powerful phone or computer. If you're on the increasingly wide end of the spectrum, Insta360's plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro allows you to edit straight in the NLE.

Just as we found with the Insta360 One RS, AI features like DeepTrack take lots of the hassle out of reframing your videos. Plus, you can create some epic effects by using one of Insta360's ShotLab templates, which offer everything from smooth-flowing hyper-lapse creations to trippy cloning and mirroring effects.

New on the X3 is something tabbed Me Mode, this allows you to create an invisible selfie stick video that's automatically saved as a video file, rather than having to reframe a 360 video to get the same effect. It's a clever way of utilising both lenses while shooting in a traditional video format, but you do have to be shielding with the framing. We can imagine it stuff useful if you're in a hurry, or low on storage space, but for the majority of cases, we were largest served by the flexibility that real 360 video offers.

Numerous modes have seen upgrades in resolution on the X3, single-lens video can now be shot at up to 4K, the slow motion bullet-time effect can now be shot at up to 4k 120fps and 360 timelapses go all the way up to 8K resolution. There's moreover a new 360 Active HDR mode, but we'll get increasingly into that later.

Image quality

• Dual 6.7mm equivalent f/1.9 lenses
• New 1/2-inch sensor
• Up to 5.7k 30fps 360 video
• Up to 72MP stills

The biggest difference in image quality comes from the new 1/2-inch sensor, which is slightly larger than the 1/2.3-inch sensor used in the One RS, One X2 and GoPro Max. We would have liked to see a resolution increase, as the X3 still offers 5.7K 360 recording, and that ways reframed output maxes out at 1080p.

We've been stuck at this resolution for years with consumer-grade 360 cams, and it has us wondering who will be the first manufacturer to tumor it up. Of course, higher resolutions will moreover make editing increasingly challenging, so this might just be the sweet spot, for now.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the One X2 on hand for uncontrived comparison, but we were worldly-wise to test the X3 slantingly the One RS, which has scrutinizingly identical specs.

In daylight, both cameras perform well, there are differences in the image but it's nonflexible to definitively say that one is largest than the other. We found that the X3 offered slightly increasingly dynamic range, but it moreover seemed to suffer from increasingly graininess in visionless areas. The One RS has increasingly vivid colours, particularly the greens, whereas the X3 looked increasingly natural with a tendency toward warmer tones. Stitching is much largest with the X3, thanks to its narrower chassis.

When it comes to still images and timelapses, the X3 is miles ahead. We tend to shoot increasingly video with 360 cameras, so it isn't our highest priority, but if you're a real manor photographer, for example, the jump to 72MP will be invaluable. The same goes for frequent timelapse shooters, who will goody profoundly from the widow resolution when it comes to reframing.

There's a new 360 Active HDR video mode which is a definite resurgence on the HDR video mode offered by the One RS. However, it didn't add as much dynamic range as we were hoping and looks a lot less natural than the standard video modes. In unrepealable lighting conditions, we can imagine it stuff useful, but we wouldn't use it as our primary shooting mode.

We tested the cameras side-by-side in extremely low-light conditions, and it was here that the new sensor revealed some of its magic. The video from the X3 was increasingly detailed throughout the scene, produced increasingly well-judged colours and captured highlights well. Conversely, the One RS blew out the highlights completely and the rest of the image was severely muddied.