Insta360 X3 – A Versatile 360-degree Action Camera

An excellent option is the multifunctional and user-friendly Insta360 X3 360-degree action camera. It improves the One X2 by highlighting its best qualities. Even without mounts, it is exciting to use, and it has a large screen, excellent stability, and an active HDR mode. The black colour is ₹41,858 on Amazon.

For all your action camera needs, go as far as the Insta360 X3. Its main feature is the capacity to record completely immersive 360-degree films. But it can shoot 4K video with passable quality just utilizing the standard action camera angle of view. In this single-lens mode, it is more precise than the GoPro Max. If you mainly want to record standard single-lens footage, the best option is dedicated action cameras from manufacturers like GoPro, Insta360, and DJI.

Insta360 X3 Specifications

PROS:

1. Playing excitingly even without mounts
2. Its screen is excellent and much bigger.
3. The 360-degree editing is a lot of power and joy.
4. Active HDR maintains details in well-lit areas.

CONS:

1. Details from the photos sometimes seem phoney when compared to GoPro film.
2. The single-lens 4K videos could be more crisp.

Operating the Camera

The Insta360 X3 offers several operation modes. Its mount-able design fits bike handlebars and helmets. Still, you can take movies with it like a smartphone—hold it. Compared to GoPro cameras, which usually seem to need a selfie stick, the X3 shines at this kind of handheld use. Comparing the X3 to older Insta360 cameras, its much-improved usability is primarily due to its vast and clear screen.

Make Your Videos

One of Insta360’s several advantages is how easy it is to edit 360-degree videos. Shorter clip editing takes just a few minutes once you’ve mastered the incredibly feature-rich and easy-to-use editing tools, and making the videos is a lot of fun.

Not Many Drawbacks

You should know about a few drawbacks, though. Not every video format is playable straight out of the camera. Furthermore, the camera doesn’t start recording immediately after you press the button. In a few ways, the image processing needs to catch up to what you get with GoPro cameras.

Should I Make an Upgrade Investment?

Among the most incredible action cameras available, the Insta360 X3 can handle about any task. However, the upgrade might not be worthwhile if you already own the previous Insta360 X2 model. The main improvements are the larger screen and the new Active HDR setting, which prevents blown-out highlights like in professional photography.

Publication Timetable and Prices

The Insta360 X3 was unveiled in September 2022, around two years after the Insta360 X2 debuted. Initially released, it was slightly more expensive than its predecessor at $449 / £459 / AU$799. Although the GoPro Max is more expensive than the X3, the latter is frequently on sale. Compared, the Ricoh Theta X seems overpriced.

Lots of Accessory Sets Available

Besides its core camera, Insta360 offers many accessory kits to suit different mounting scenarios. The Get-Set Kit, retailing for $496 / £510 / AU$800, includes a 64GB memory card, a protective lens cap cover, and an “invisible” selfie stick. For additional details on its other kits—the Snow Kit, Motorcycle Kit, Bike Kit, Bullet Time Kit, Ultimate Kit, and Virtual Tour Kit—visit Insta360’s website.

Preparation and Construction

The Insta360 X3 carries on the upright stick-shaped camera design of its forerunner. It has a threaded mount point on the bottom if you’d want to attach an accessory, such as a selfie stick. It’s astonishing how nice the X3 handles are, even without ergonomic grip curves. The sides are made of diamond-shaped plastic moulded for additional grip. The back and front are covered with a smooth plastic surface. Unlike GoPro cameras, there is no rubberized texture to the surfaces. Nevertheless, you should proceed with great care near the display and the glass of the camera lens.

The Display

The screen of the X3 may be its most apparent design enhancement, as it is big, bright, and clear. X2 modular cameras used to have a bit of circular viewfinder glass; however, smaller square screens were also offered. In contrast, the screen of the X3 appears large because of its tall portrait aspect ratio. Comparatively speaking, the GoPro Max has a smaller screen. Examining your framing options and adjusting the camera on the large screen is much easier. It has to be manually turned up to be seen in direct sunlight, although it does get as bright as the LCD on the GoPro Max.

Content producers and influencers were considered when designing the vertical orientation of the screen, which resembles the framing of videos shared on social media. However, the screen orientation will not automatically adjust when you swipe the camera to the side. Though at first unexpected, it makes perfect sense. If you use it one-handed without a selfie stick, holding the camera horizontally can help you get your fingers closer to the lenses. Moreover, the only disadvantage of the vertical preview in the single lens mode is the tiny screen shrinkage from the 16:9 aspect ratio. A full-screen preview is possible with a simple 90-degree camera rotation and shooting in the 9:16 aspect ratio.

Water Resistance

The Insta360 X3 can be submerged up to 10 meters (33 feet), depending on how you define “water resistance.” This is double the GoPro Max’s water resistance and the same as the GoPro Hero 11 Black. However, you may want to get Insta360’s specialist Dive Case accessory because of the higher pressures at depths approaching 10 meters. The absence of it could be deadly. The rubber gasket seals around the Insta360’s battery compartment and charging port, allowing it to resist water.

Release the two side sliders to access the detachable battery. I am writing to inform you that, throughout the testing period, I could not put the X3 in any water-related scenarios. The camera’s body becomes hot when filming, but it never gets uncomfortable when carried about and used. Not even after 45 minutes of nonstop video at the highest resolution of 5.7K did overheating warnings appear.

How Long does the battery last?

The 1800mAh battery of the Insta360 X3 has far greater capacity than the 1600mAh battery found in the GoPro Max. Insta360 says users should plan for a continuous recording time of around 81 minutes while shooting in 360-degree mModeat 5.7K quality. After jMode15 minutes of use, my anecdotal testing revealed that the battery life dropped from 100% to 87%, suggesting that the battery life may be greater than what Insta360 says—but 45 minutes of continuous recording had left the battery at 49%, which is more consistent with the 81-minute estimate.

The X3 shows 100% battery for a long time, which is probably not the case, a common tactic many consumer electronics manufacturers use. Though I don’t think it’s the most honest approach, and it feels strange on a gadget of this calibre, it’s also not a deal-breaker. Firmware updates may improve this with further charge cycles on the battery. Most importantly, it appears that Insta360’s promised 81-minute battery life is true.

Taking a break

Action cameras have genuinely excelled in stabilization for a very long time. Although talking about stabilization on Insta360 cameras has become old, it is still essential, particularly at lower price points. Their unique FlowState stabilization technology has been excellent, and the X3 is no different. The camera works great for extreme sports and athletics if you’re cool with its rather tall design protruding slightly when mounted to things like helmets or gear.

The 360-degree viewing angle enables almost endless stabilization possibilities. Thanks to the X3’s horizon-leveling technology, your movie will always be level and oriented appropriately.

When editing your footage, you can enable a “Direction Lock” setting to make it appear that you were holding the X3 straight and firmly the whole time. This mode compensates for accidental Modeamera twisting motions.

Time-Lapse Modes

Apart from ordinary video, the X3’s integrated TimeShift mode allows you to record handheld time-lapse recordings without a tripod. It’s not even as good as GoPro’s, which can identify interesting environmental motions and dynamically change speed. However, TimeShift continues to be a quick and simple way to create accelerated frame hyper-lapse videos. Even higher quality time-lapses can be obtained by capturing at full regular framerate and then editing to your preferred pace. This kind of granular control over speed ramping and motion blur is made possible by Insta360’s software.

Summing up

Not to mention, the X3 offers a few additional exciting shooting modes. In particular, the “Me Mode” fully uses the slight overlap in the field of vision between the two cameras. It flattens the perspective of the video and digitally vanishes the selfie stick on the camera. You can capture fantastic low-angle photos without the stick, but your arm will still be visible when you hold it. Insta360 demonstrates using Me MModefor extreme sports, including snowboarding, taking amazing low-angle follow-camera shots, and jumping into pools from above. Excellent use is made of the Xbox 360 system.

With the full 360-degree camera mode, you can still snap images with an extremely high quality of 72M; however, it’s a little slow. While shooting regular pictures, the photo quality is good enough if it occasionally falls short of what you would obtain with a high-end smartphone.