Insta360 Flow Review | Weifang Quartz Beads Co.,Ltd

DJI and Zhiyun dominate the smartphone gimbal space, but Insta360 knows action video forward, backward, and in hyper-lapse. The Insta360 Flow gimbal ($159) sees the 360-degree action camera company expand beyond its core market into the phone space. The Flow relies on AI to help accurately track subjects when recording and goes head-to-head with models like the DJI Osmo Mobile 6 ($159) and the Zhiyun Smooth 5S ($169), both of which offer similar feature sets at about the same price. Thanks to its excellent portability, ease of use, and smooth performance, the Insta360 Flow pulls ahead of its competitors to earn our Editors’ Choice award for smartphone gimbals.

The Insta360 Flow comes in Stone Gray or Summit White and is made of hard plastic. A rubber sleeve that fits over the handle gives you some extra grip while shooting. There are two joints—one in the middle and one near the phone holder—that rotate to open and close the gimbal. You need to give it a little pull to unfold it and gently push it in the opposite direction to fold it down.

While folded, the gimbal measures 6.4 by 3.1 by 1.4 inches (HWD). It's smaller than its closest competitor, the DJI Osmo Mobile 6, which folds to 7.4 by 3.3 by 1.7 inches. When opened, the Flow is 10.6 by 2.9 by 2.8 inches (compared with the Osmo's 10.9 by 4.4 by 3.9 inches). The Flow's extra portability when collapsed makes a big difference when packing it for travel.

As far as phone sizes go, the gimbal can carry handsets up to 10.6 ounces. For reference, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is one of the heavier phones on the market at 8.47 ounces. The phone clip spreads to 3.3 inches, which is large enough to accommodate big phones (the iPhone 14 Pro Max is 3.05 inches, so it'll fit even with a thick case).

You control the Flow with a small wheel in the middle of the handle. It features small indicator lights that tell you whether the gimbal is in Auto, Follow, Pan-Follow, or POV mode. Below is the record button, a little joystick used for changing your aim, and a rotate button that flips the phone from portrait to landscape. You'll find the power button at the bottom of the wheel. A small jog wheel is wrapped around the other controls, letting you zoom in and out. The wheel is sensitive to touch, so you can slide your finger left or right to change the filming mode, which we'll get to shortly. A trigger on the back of the handle lets you quickly recenter the gimbal or start/stop tracking a subject.

The controls mostly work fine, but the touch wheel's sensitivity can be an issue. I had to repeat some gestures a few times to get them to register. Once you get used to how hard it expects you to press, it becomes easier, but there's a bit of a learning curve.

If you want to make the Flow longer, a built-in selfie stick expands the length by 8.5 inches, the same amount of extension offered by the Osmo Mobile 6.

While many gimbals include a tripod you screw into the bottom, the Flow’s tripod is built into the bottom of the device itself. This means you don't need to carry it separately in an accessories bag—you pull it out and are quickly ready to prop the gimbal up for easy filming. While the tripod emerges from the bottom of the gimbal, the extension rod expands from just below the phone mount so they don't get in the way of one other. There's a built-in cold shoe where you can mount accessories such as microphones.

The device unfolds and powers on with a single arm rotation near the middle of the gimbal. With an iOS device, the gimbal automatically connects and pops up a notification to open the Insta360 app. You can start capturing stable footage in just a few seconds. This feature is not available with Android phones.

Unlike the Zhyiun Smooth S5, there's no balancing required. Instead, you only need to put the magnetic clip near the middle of your phone and the gimbal will work. Putting it too high or too low will cause the app to warn you as such, but you have to be way off-center for it to be a problem. This is similar to the way the DJI Osmo Mobile 6 works.

Battery life is solid, with Insta360 estimating the gimbal lasts around 12 hours per charge. In our testing, that number was fairly accurate. The internal battery, which is relatively large at 2,900mAh, charges via USB-C. It also works as a power bank and can charge a connected phone for longer shooting sessions.

We received the Flow Creator Kit, which includes some extras, including a carrying case and a small fill flight accessory. It costs $209, which isn't bad for the additional goodies, especially the light, which features varying brightness levels and can add some flexibility to your shots. You can also purchase the accessories separately if you don't want the whole Creator Kit, including a Spotlight ($24.99) and custom decorative inserts.

There is no shortage of shooting options with the Insta360 Flow. The primary modes are Auto, Follow, Pan-Follow, and FPV (first-person view). Auto simplifies the process of shooting—just select a target and the AI will keep the subject (adult, child, animal, object) centered as you move around it. The other modes let you take control of the gimbal's motors (pan, tilt, and roll). For example, with Follow, the roll axis is locked, while the tilt and pan motors follow the gimbal's movements. With Pan-Follow, you get a locked horizon and the camera follows the subject. And with FPV, the zoom wheel becomes a rotational control, which lets you dial in the angle you want to mimic the footage you'd get from a drone as you move forward.

There are some secondary modes as well. We really like the Active Plus mode, which is designed for when you or the subject are moving quickly. This mode comes in handy for recording sports or other action-focused footage.

Double-pressing the Switch button can quickly change between YouTube-friendly landscape and TikTok-friendly portrait filming. You can also change settings by pressing, double-pressing, and triple-pressing the trigger on the back. All of the controls work well, but changing modes requires you to use the round black control surface as a touch wheel. You swipe left or right to switch but we found this action to be finicky; it often didn't work on the first try.

While the device is primarily designed for video, the selfie stick and tripod give you options for still photos that would be almost impossible to capture without a gimbal. For example, there's a 360-degree panorama mode in the Insta360 app that takes a series of linked photos to create a beautiful all-around image. There's also timeshift, timelapse, traditional panorama, and more.

Regardless of what mode we shot in, we got some of the smoothest footage we've seen from a smartphone gimbal. Our results with an Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max (which has some of its own stabilization features) were excellent.

The Insta360 app makes capturing footage and images with the gimbal easy, though the experience is slightly better on an iPhone than on an Android phone. This is mostly thanks to the quick-open feature available to iPhones mentioned above. The Flow app automatically pushes a notification to iPhones, allowing for near-instant app opening when you turn the gimbal on. It's a small thing, but it shaves a few seconds off of the launch process.

Once you're in the app, though, the experience between Android and iOS is essentially the same. This is an improvement over what's available from DJI and Zhiyun, which pare down the feature list significantly for Android devices. For example, you can quickly swipe between the modes on your phone's screen to take a 360 panoramic photo or record a simple stabilized video.

For more advanced shots, some templates are included to help you get started in a feature called Shot Genie. You still need to frame and capture the shots, but the templates offer guidance so even amateurs can record engaging scenes. There's also Barrel Roll and Dolly Zoom, two standard cinematic effects.

When you're all done, the app uses AI to help edit your shots for the best possible footage. Of course, you can ignore the app entirely if you wish and use your phone's native video recording app to capture content.

With its excellent subject tracking, easy-to-use (but advanced) shooting modes, and compact portability, the Insta360 Flow is easy to recommend to content creators, travelers, and anyone else looking for a highly portable gimbal to assist in capturing super-smooth imagery. The Auto mode alone ensures you get stabilized footage out of the box quicker and easier than what's possible with the DJI Osmo Mobile 6 and the Zhiyun Smooth S5. What really puts it ahead of the competition is size; the Insta360 Flow is significantly smaller than other smartphone gimbals, which makes it easy to add to your bag. Simply put, it's the best gimbal we've tested for the price, earning it our Editors' Choice award.

The Insta360 Flow gimbal holds your phone steady for outstandingly smooth imagery and easily collapses for travel without sacrificing stability.

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