In this article and accompanying video I want to help you decide whether the Insta360 X5 is still the best 360 camera. This is Insta360’s fifth-generation 360 camera, and I’ve tested almost every model they’ve released over the years. But now there’s proper competition: DJI has entered the 360 space for the first time with the Osmo 360, and GoPro has finally updated the Max – the Max 2 is their first new 360 camera in years.
And just briefly, if you’re new to 360 cameras: they capture the entire scene around you, and you choose your framing afterwards. Image quality is only a small part of what matters with 360 cameras – and I’ll be looking at many other areas that are arguably equally important when choosing the right one for you.
I’ve tested all three in detail to see which one actually comes out on top. Let’s start with daytime image quality.
Daytime image quality
Increasing in size, the GoPro, Insta360 and DJI have 1/2.3”, 1/1.28” and 1/1.1” sensors. Bigger is better but in good lighting conditions footage from all three cameras looks good. Comparing the cameras you tend to notice differences in colour more than image quality.
All my samples are recorded at each camera’s highest resolution and frame rate – so 8K 25 fps for Insta360 and GoPro, and 8K 50 fps for the DJI.
DJI is the first 360 camera I’ve tested which has the higher frame rate at 8K. For action sports this makes the footage noticeably smoother, and it also gives you the option for a bit of slow motion. For me and how I use a 360 camera the higher frame rate is a big selling point for DJI.
You can get higher frames for true slow motion – 120 fps on the X5 and 100 fps on DJI and GoPro – but you have to drop the resolution to 4K and by the time you reframe a 360° video at that resolution, the quality just isn’t very good.
If I really had to pick a winner, I think GoPro has the best image quality overall, at least in these direct comparisons. But it’s pretty close and I imagine most people would be happy with any of these cameras – but do let me know down below which camera you prefer.
Low light image quality
None of these cameras are great in low light, but DJI is the best thanks to its larger sensor, followed closely by Insta360, with GoPro trailing far behind. Both DJI and Insta360 include dedicated low-light modes, and Insta360 even prompts you to switch to its PureVideo night mode when it detects low light – which is genuinely useful.
I shot the comparison at dusk, right when that prompt appeared and switched the Osmo 360 to its SuperNight mode. Any darker than that and the Max 2 becomes practically unusable.
Design and build
The Insta360 is the heaviest of the three at 200g, 15g heavier than the DJI. The DJI and GoPro have a similar squat design which makes more sense to me on mounts like handlebars and helmets – it doesn’t stick out as far and feels more stable. Although the tall and thin Insta360 is easier to hold if you’ve not using a mount or selfie stick. You can see all their dimensions on screen.
They all feel solid but I’d probably give the edge to the GoPro with its rubberised finish – it just feels less vulnerable than the other two. But it has the most frustrating lens caps of the three. They’re fiddly to get off and they’re small and easy to lose. And worse than that, it’s the only one that comes with no pouch. You don’t even get their protective case in the accessories bundle.
All three are waterproof, the Insta360 up to 15 m, DJI to 10 m and GoPro just 5 m. And currently only the Insta360 has a dive case which you need for 360 filming underwater.
One thing I don’t like on the Insta360 is you have to completely remove the battery to get to the microSD card, which exposes all the camera’s internals. If you’ve just taken the camera underwater or you’re out in the rain this is not ideal.
Screen & user interface
The Insta360 has the largest screen and the most physical buttons, and two of them are customisable. The Insta360 and the DJI come on almost instantly, there’s more of a delay with the GoPro. But I do like GoPro’s conventional record button on top of the camera and both its buttons have the best feel. Especially compared to the DJI, which are a little too firm.
The GoPro’s screen is the smallest and the menu system feels clunky, likely due to the ageing GP2 processor. It’s also the only camera that doesn’t let you move around the 360° image – you can switch between front and back lens but that’s it.
I probably prefer the DJI’s user interface overall. For me it’s the most intuitive and not overly complex, but a lot of this will come down to what you’re used to. What is unique on the DJI, which is more useful than you think, is the recording display. All camera’s switch off their screen after a short time when you hit record.
But DJI shows a large display with the recording time and camera settings. So often I hit record – and then question if I was in the right mode. The GoPro has the tiniest flashing red LED so you have to look very carefully to see if you’ve even started recording. You can tap GoPro’s and DJI’s screen to bring back the live view whilst recording, but you need to turn enable this feature on the Insta360.
Mounting
GoPro wins here. It has both the standard ¼” mount and foldable GoPro fingers that magnetically snap into place. The other two only have the standard ¼” mount.
To use them with standard GoPro accessories, you’ll need to buy their magnetic finger mount separately.
GoPro also has an optional magnetic mount but this is also better – it can be attached either backwards or forwards – the DJI and Insta360 only fit one way.
The DJI and GoPro have magnetic bases, but the magnet is not strong enough to hold their weight.
Audio
Both Insta360 and the DJI have 4 microphones, GoPro has 6 microphones. They all have several settings for their internal mics but typically most people just leave everything as it comes – and this is how they sound. Watch the accompanying video to hear how their mics sound.
Overall, I think the Insta360 sounds the best in this test, though the DJI has a slightly fuller tone. The GoPro is the weakest here, with a noticeably more muffled sound.
All three cameras can connect to Bluetooth microphones like my AirPods Pro for example but this never sounds great.
DJI and Insta360 have their own mics with a proprietary connection to their cameras which improves audio quality.
Insta360 has their Mic Air and DJI their extensive microphone line up including the Mic 2 and Mic Mini I have here.
Replaceable lenses
Insta360 finally introduced replaceable lenses with the X5. Considering how vulnerable the lenses are on 360° cameras it’s a very welcome upgrade.
GoPro followed suit and it’s easier to do on the GoPro – but their replacement lenses are more expensive.
Bizarrely, DJI doesn’t have user replaceable lenses – you need to send the camera back to DJI. This is probably the biggest miss on DJI’s camera. I’d suggest taking out their Care Refresh programme which is very good. But it’s extra cost, and time without your camera.
There is some argument that you get better image quality with integrated lenses but I haven’t really noticed that.
Cloud backup
This is an easy win for GoPro with their Premium subscription, which does include a few additional benefits too. You’ll need a fast internet connection, especially for 360° files which are large, but it automatically uploads everything to the cloud with unlimited storage and it works with any GoPro camera.
You can also edit 360° footage directly from the cloud, without downloading it which is a bonus. If you start taking a lot of 360° footage you’ll realise how difficult it is storing and organising it – so this is a major selling point for GoPro if you’re happy paying for a subscription.
Insta360 have released their Insta360+ subscription, but it currently only supports their 360° cameras, and even their highest tier is limited to only 2TB and costs twice as much as GoPro Premium.
DJI doesn’t offer anything at the moment – I really hope that changes soon.
Software
Software is arguably as important as image quality. You have to reframe your 360° footage to convert it to a standard flat video you can easily share. Some platforms do support uploading 360° footage, but it’s very niche.
This reframing needs to be as painless as possible or you just won’t do it.
All three companies have decent smartphone apps that you can also use for setting up your camera before shooting. Insta360’s app is the most developed and has some genuinely fun AI features they’ve been adding even before AI went mainstream!
But all the smartphone apps do a decent job of reframing and editing your footage. Most usefully they can all track a subject which is far quicker and easier than keyframing manually. The GoPro Quik app is my least favourite since you have to download your footage to your phone first which is very tedious. You can do this with a wired connection but it’s still very slow. And there’s a delay even just viewing a low resolution video whilst it “stabilises” the footage.
With DJI and Insta360 you can edit the video live without downloading, and with minimal delay over a wireless connection to your camera. It’s far more convenient, especially with longer clips. Both DJI and GoPro split longer recordings into multiple files which makes organising footage messy. Insta360 does split large video files into 30 minute clips which is already better than the others, but in both its mobile and desktop apps the whole recording appears as a single continuous clip – which is a much better experience.
There’s a bigger difference when it comes to editing on your desktop computer. Insta360 Studio is easily the best desktop software – it’s upgraded all the time, followed by DJI Studio if you’re on Mac. There is a PC version but it has no tracking. GoPro Player is very limited and has no tracking on a PC or Mac.
For the more advanced user all three cameras have Adobe Premiere Pro plugins for reframing your footage directly, although DJI’s only currently works on a Mac. My main editing machine is a PC so I’ve not tried it yet.
The Insta360 plugin lets you directly edit your captured 360° footage. You need to convert GoPro .360 files to standard equirectangular files in GoPro Player before you can work with them in Premiere Pro which makes the whole thing too time consuming. Even on my high end editing machine it takes too long to convert even a 10 minute file. If you do have the patience, GoPro is the only one currently that also has a Davinci Resolve plug-in.
Charging
Both Insta360 and DJI support fast charging at up to around 18W for the DJI and almost 30W for the Insta360 which is very impressive. GoPro doesn’t support fast charging and just like every camera they’ve released in the last 5 years, maxes out at 10W.
I charged all the cameras with their batteries fully depleted using a fast 100W mains charger and a high quality USB-C cable.
The GoPro took 1 hour 42 minutes to get to 80% charge and another hour for a full charge which is ridiculous for a camera released in 2025.
DJI has a clear display showing the battery level and got to 80% charge in 34 minutes and was fully charged in 1 hour 8 minutes.
Insta360 took less than 24 minutes to get to 80% charge and just 1 hour 6 minutes for a full charge. These times are impressive but longer than Insta360’s claims. They claim 20 minutes to 80% and 35 minutes for full charge.
All three cameras have separate battery fast chargers to purchase or available in some bundles. DJI’s is the most compact and charges 3 batteries and the other two charge two batteries.
The DJI and Insta360 chargers also function as a power bank. DJI’s output is a little quicker but Insta360 has an integrated USB-C charging cable which is very nifty. All the chargers are quite pricey though.
One unique feature of the X5 camera itself is it supports reverse charging – so you can use the camera as an emergency power bank if your phone is low on battery. It’s only around 5W but definitely better than nothing!
Battery life & overheating
Insta360 has the largest battery at 2400 mAh, while DJI and GoPro are similar at 1950 mAh and 1960 mAh respectively. One of the most compelling features of the Osmo 360 is that it also works with the entire Osmo Action battery lineup – from the Action 3 right through to the new Action 6 – something neither GoPro nor Insta360 offers.
DJI claims the longest battery life in 8K 30 fps at 100 mins, then Insta360 at 93 minutes and GoPro at 66 minutes.
I ran all three cameras continuously at their highest settings for 60 minutes to see how much battery they had left. Insta360 still had 45% remaining, GoPro had 15%, and the DJI was down to just 2%. This was running all cameras at their highest settings so for DJI that was 8K 50 fps. Dropping the frame rate to 25 fps like the others I got over 100 minutes – exactly as spec’d.
I’ve also had no issues with overheating in my tests – in real conditions outdoors with airflow. It was quite cold as well. In an indoor test with no airflow with the room at around 17°C, the GoPro didn’t fare very well shutting off in under 30 minutes and reaching around 54°C. The other two were under 40°C at this same point and I didn’t get either of them to overheat. The X5 ran out of capacity at 60 mins, and the DJI ran out of battery at 100 mins.
Overlays
Theoretically all three cameras let you overlay GPS data to show your speed etc. DJI and Insta360 don’t have built-in GPS but can work with their respective GPS remotes and also activity files from Garmin and Apple Watch. Using these activity files has the added bonus that you can include additional data like heart rate and power. This is a great feature.
GoPro has GPS built in so everything should be easier, but as of now there appears to be no way to use the GPS data in the Quik app. You’d need to use a third party program which will be too much trouble for most people, and GoPro doesn’t support using activity files.
Stitching
Stitching – the process of merging the footage from both lenses so the seam isn’t visible – is good on all three cameras in most situations. You still need to make sure objects and people aren’t too close to the stitch line – basically the sides of the camera. Anything important that’s close to the camera should ideally face one of the lenses.
If you do notice stitching issues, only Insta360 gives you any real control. In their Studio app you can choose between three stitching methods – AI, Optical Flow and Dynamic Stitching – to see which gives the best result.
Photo modes
I don’t tend to use photo modes on action cameras, but they’re much more useful on 360° cameras – even for professional work like interactive virtual tours. I actually got into 360° photography before 360° video even existed.
GoPro, Insta360 and DJI offer 29, 72 and 120 megapixel photo modes respectively, but the standout feature for me is something only Insta360 offers: a true HDR photo mode.
Because a 360° photo captures absolutely everything around you, the dynamic range can be huge. The X5 can shoot a configurable auto-bracketed HDR image – up to seven shots with adjustable exposure spacing – and merge it in-camera with excellent results, again good enough for professional use.
Additional features
There are a few additional features worth mentioning.
Both DJI and GoPro shoot in 10-bit, which gives you more latitude in colour grading. Insta360 is limited to 8-bit, so you get a little less flexibility in post.
All cameras support a flat Log profile, again useful for the most flexibility grading your footage. Insta360’s is only supported up to 5.7K and without 10-bit colour is less useful.
The highest bitrate on Insta360, DJI and GoPro is 180 Mbps, 170 Mbps and 120 Mbps respectively. GoPro does have a 300 Mbps option if you’re happy installing their Labs firmware.
The DJI has 105 GB of usable internal storage available which can be a lifesaver when you forget your memory card.
Insta360 also has a dedicated Dash Cam mode. You can reserve part of the microSD card for loop recording, and set it to only record when the camera has power – so it automatically starts and stops with your car’s 12V outlet.
All three cameras also have a single-lens mode so you can use them like a normal action camera without any reframing. But personally, if I’m carrying a 360° camera, I want the flexibility to reframe. The X5’s InstaFrame feature is a nice best-of-both-worlds option – it records a 360° clip and a standard flat clip at the same time. You can pick either the rear view or a selfie view for the flat video. It’s limited to 5.7K+ for the 360° footage and 1080p for the flat clip, but it’s still a very handy feature.
I haven’t discussed stabilisation in its own section because in 360 modes stabilisation is always on, there’s no setting to change, and all three cameras perform equally well.
Price
I’m comparing the standard retail prices here, but check down below for current pricing – including any discounts or extras I can share.
The DJI Osmo 360 is the cheapest of the three cameras at £410 in the UK, but at the moment it’s not available directly from DJI in the US.
GoPro is £450 or $500 but always has an offer for existing or new subscribers, which makes it a fair bit cheaper. And cloud backup is included in that subscription.
Insta360 retails at £520 or $550 but again usually has promotions running so do check down below.
Conclusions
So is the Insta360 X5 still the best 360 camera you can buy right now? I think, for most people, it still probably is. It delivers good image quality in both daylight and to a degree in low light, it has the best software – especially if you prefer editing on a computer – and you get fast charging, replaceable lenses, good battery life, a true HDR photo mode, and a shooting mode for almost everything, even if all those options can feel a bit overwhelming.
But DJI is right on Insta360’s heels. If you already own other DJI gear – especially their Osmo Action cameras or their mic systems – it’s hard not to stay in the ecosystem. It has the best low-light performance thanks to the larger sensor, and it’s the only camera here that can shoot 8K at 50fps, giving you smoother action footage with the option for a bit of slow-mo. But they really do need to sort out their desktop software, and the non-replaceable lens will put a lot of people off.
And finally there’s the new GoPro Max 2. I’ve been waiting a long time for this update, and I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. Frustratingly, the daytime image quality is arguably the best of the three – it captures what I see straight out of the camera with no tweaking. But low-light performance is far behind the other two, and the reframing workflow is honestly painful. The mobile app is okay, but I tend to shoot long clips and having to download everything before editing is tedious. The desktop software is extremely limited, there’s no fast charging, and it’s the only camera I could actually get to overheat indoors very easily. And unlike DJI, there’s no real ecosystem benefit – the batteries aren’t compatible with Hero cameras and GoPro doesn’t have its own mic system for it. That said, if daytime image quality is all you care about, it feels the most rugged, it has the best cloud-backup solution, and the price is reasonable with the subscription.
Don’t forget to take a look at my YouTube video at the top of the page, and again please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it. If you tap the bell icon when you subscribe you’ll get a notification as soon as I release a video, and there’ll be a link to my site here for the written article. YouTube is also the best place to leave a comment. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can!
Purchase directly from Insa360 – Black Friday Sale now on! Some great prices – and you get some nice extras using my links below! (And it helps my YouTube channel and this website – thank you!)
Insta360 X5 15% OFF (up to £100 OFF!) + Free 1-year 1TB Cloud Service + Free Dual Replacement Lens Kit + Hard Case: https://www.insta360.com/sal/x5?utm_term=INRT7JX
Insta360 X4 30% OFF (up to £200 OFF!) + Free invisible selfie stick, Hard Case + 200GB Cloud Storage: https://www.insta360.com/sal/x4?utm_term=INRT7JX (very close to X5 just without replaceable lenses)
Insta360 X3 24% OFF (up to £220 OFF) + Free invisible selfie stick, Hard Case + 200GB Cloud Storage: https://www.insta360.com/sal/x3?utm_term=INRT7JX (unbelievable price for a 360 camera, just no 8K. But on the plus side, it’s lighter than the X4 and X5 so I still often grab it!)
Amazon Links:
GoPro Max 2 £100 off: https://geni.us/9CDT3
DJI Osmo 360 Adventure Combo £140 off: https://geni.us/425Q5l
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