Insta360 has announced their latest action cam, the Insta360 GO Ultra. This unit attempts to shift forward the Insta360 GO lineup from being less full-featured, to now having more higher-end features from their Ace Pro series.
This includes a bigger sensor size, increase to 60FPS in 4K, better low-light performance, swappable microSD card, and tons more. In virtually every way, it’s a very substantial and solid upgrade. But, that’s only half the picture. You see, the price is now $449, the same price as the Ace Pro 2, and even more critically, now the most expensive action cam on the market, above even the GoPro Hero 13 Black & DJI Action 5. As such, one simply has to compare it against those cameras, both in features, but more critically, image quality. And that’s where things unravel a bit.
Down below, you’ll find all the chapters for my review video, diving into all those sections. Furthermore, this was not a good time span for me and killing action cameras. I managed to kill 2.5 of them during the testing of this. One Insta360 Go 3S drowned, one GoPro Hero 13 Black was lost at sea, and then I’ve seemingly also killed a GoPro Hero 4K that won’t turn on the display anymore after its most recent underwater comparison session.
In any case, here’s the goods:
0:00 Quick Overview
0:44 Tiny Action Cam Explainer
1:07 The Pricing
1:35 Form Factor Changes
1:53 Pendant Changes
2:03 New Tether Inbox
2:13 Killing an Action Cam
2:30 Increased Sensor Size & 60FPS
3:13 Low Light Footage & Comparisons
4:50 Ambient Light Sensor Added
5:20 Active HDR Added
5:39 Added MicroSD Card Slot
6:25 Changes in Waterproofing
7:00 Killing another action cam
8:08 Battery spec changes
8:20 Battery charging changes
8:35 Increased FOV
8:53 Added 2X Clarity Zoom
9:10 Added 50MP photos
9:25 Increased pop-up screen size
9:42 New Ring Remote Control
10:07 The Mounting Mess
11:18 Action Cam Season/Final Thoughts
With that, thanks for watching!
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Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
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Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
The price might be a killer.
But they’re doing great marketing with the smaller GO, getting little kids to clip them onto hat brims.
I can wait, little too expensive for me.
The whole point of the Go 3s is its tiny size. The Ultra looses some of that advantage…
The pendant angle adjustment, which way does it go? As a cyclist, you want it to go up.
It has it illustrated on the magnetic pendant, so you don’t forget.
It was odd to recognize a filming location and time for a review. Welcome to the rock!
Thanks, good to be back!
Why does the Insta360 X4 not have a pause button? I have to create a new video every time I stop/start. Makes for a ton of unnecessary files and work. WHERE IS THE PAUSE? Their other cameras have it.
Would you generally recommend this one as POV Option for bike rides? I really like, that it basically wont show on pictures (at Granfondos etc)
I’m in the market for an action cam for an upcoming cycling trip in Europe. I have no experience with any of these cameras or software so something like a mount that’s different from previous versions doesn’t matter so much to me. I probably won’t be doing any swimming with it, not to start with anyway. I mostly just want to record the trip and be able to post it, save it, send it to friends, etc. I really like the SD slot feature a lot. I just watched a review of this action cam from another source that showed the editing part which seemed really easy and intuitive. I don’t distrust that review but I really trust the DCR reviews so I’m curious if you would recommend this one to me given these circumstances or would you recommend going a different route. Thanks!
Yeah, the action cam review scene is honestly about as dirty as it gets, sadly. Virtually every one of the Insta360 & DJI reviews you’ll find early after announcement will be paid in some capacity. Insta360 is definitely a bit better in terms of not putting approval requirements on bigger reviewers though (for example, neither myself or Becca Farsace*, since neither of us would ever agree to that – she’s awesome).
In any case, the Insta360 app is indeed silly easy to use for quick edits. Honestly, all of them are, though, I’d say Insta360 takes the lead amongst the big three for that (GoPro/DJI/Insta360). GoPro has the lead in terms of some of the video quality/color bits, but these days Insta360’s app is super powerful and also super easy to use.
I like the Ultra a ton. And I use it here and there. The only thing that really keeps it from being my daily action cam is that it’s not fully waterproofed (full case). As someone that lives next to the sea and is in it constantly here, having the entire case/holder water-friendly is sorta key to me. But, that’s just me. Same would apply to DJI Nano, which also lacks waterproofing on the screen part. Whereas the GoPro Hero 4K/Hero 4K Lit is fully waterproofed, but doesn’t have anywhere near the same quality as the DJI Nano & Insta360 Ultra (or honestly, even Go 3S).
*Becca: link to youtube.com
Excellent, thanks! I really appreciate your answer and taking time to answer. Another great reason to read and subscribe to DCR!
Follow up, if I may – do you have to swim with the whole case or can you swim with just the camera part? Sorry if that’s a dumb question. Thanks again!
Also, thanks for the link to Becca! First time I’ve watched her and now I’m subscribed there too!