00:00 Insta360's X-Series.
00:02 It is the company's most successful camera lineup to date,
00:05 and it's their flagship 360 degree action camera.
00:09 The X3 sold over 1 million units
00:12 since its launch in September, 2022.
00:14 But as a whole, they're starting to look a lot
00:17 like a camera series that we all know real well.
00:20 I'm Becca, welcome back to Full Frame.
00:22 Let's talk about how Insta360
00:23 is gonna solve the hero problem.
00:28 This is the new $500 Insta360 X4,
00:31 and there are really only two things
00:33 you need to know about it.
00:34 It's capable of 360 video at 8K 30 frames per second,
00:37 so clear some space on your hard drives,
00:39 and it has a new removable lens guard system.
00:42 Spec bumps can be a big deal, and 8K is no small feat,
00:45 but the X4 is a unique product for Insta360
00:48 because that's pretty much all they gave us this year.
00:50 There aren't any fancy software tricks,
00:52 like the Mi Mode that we got on the X3.
00:54 It uses both lenses to create a POV
00:56 from the bottom of the camera for use with a selfie stick.
00:59 And there aren't any fancy Shot Lab features
01:01 that started rolling out with the X2,
01:03 like the AI Warp that puts an artistic look
01:05 onto your footage.
01:06 And lastly, the design language stayed almost the same
01:09 from the X3, except for the fact
01:11 that the X4 is a bit bigger,
01:12 which is a first for this lineup.
01:15 All of this is starting to signal to me
01:17 that the X4 might represent the final form
01:20 of the X series lineup.
01:22 Sort of how in 2016, when the GoPro Hero 5 was launched,
01:25 well, that kind of became the final form
01:27 of the GoPro Hero lineup.
01:29 In the first half of 2012,
01:32 GoPro was responsible for 21.5%
01:34 of all digital camcorder shipments in the US.
01:38 And later that year, when the GoPro Hero 3 launched,
01:41 it was the highest selling POV camera on the market.
01:43 This was because of a few things.
01:45 First, GoPro was at the right place at the right time.
01:48 More typical point-and-shoot cameras
01:50 were rapidly being replaced by the cameras on our phones.
01:53 While GoPros offered folks a unique POV
01:55 from a camera that could take falls and go underwater,
01:58 so long as it was in its housing.
02:01 And second, GoPro's marketing was incredibly strong.
02:04 By 2013, GoPro logos were seen all over action sports.
02:08 Take for example, the 2013 X Games Aspen.
02:11 You can see GoPro logos here, here, and even here,
02:15 on Sean White's helmet, when he landed the first triple cork
02:18 in X Games slopestyle history.
02:20 But GoPro marketing wasn't only on our TVs
02:23 and on our favorite athletes.
02:25 Anywhere a GoPro was sold, there was a TV next to it,
02:27 showing all the amazing things you could capture with it.
02:30 But by 2016, sales of the Hero camera were down,
02:33 and the infamous Karma drone
02:35 was literally falling out of the sky.
02:37 But I don't need to talk about Karma
02:40 or how big this drone is, oh my God.
02:43 I don't need to talk about any of this
02:46 to continue talking about how the Hero line up.
02:48 Ah, God.
02:50 How the Hero lineup plateaued.
02:53 The bigger problem with GoPro's Hero line
02:55 was that it oversaturated its own market.
02:58 I mean, everyone had one of these cameras,
03:00 and they had nothing more to do with it
03:01 or to learn from it.
03:03 And this is the GoPro problem.
03:05 How do you keep people's attention
03:07 when innovation starts to slow?
03:09 In a lot of ways, Insta360 has already begun
03:12 solving this problem for itself
03:13 by taking its camera tech and putting it
03:15 into other products.
03:17 This includes a webcam, the tiny Go cams,
03:20 a 360 drone attachment, and even a gimbal.
03:23 But I wanna talk about the X series
03:25 specifically in relation to the Hero series,
03:28 because, I mean, for starters,
03:30 it's Insta360's most successful product.
03:33 And also, its whole launch and beginning
03:36 and the way it's continuing
03:38 mirrors the Hero lineup almost to a T.
03:40 So first, Insta360 launched a camera
03:44 that most folks had never seen before,
03:45 and one that was far more versatile than our phones.
03:48 Then the company showed people what they could do with it,
03:51 not by putting it on screens in stores,
03:53 but instead paying a lot of money to influencers
03:55 who then made videos about it and flooded our algorithms.
03:58 And now, in a real full circle moment,
04:01 there's a Shaun White partnership
04:03 with the Insta360 X3 Camera Snow Kit,
04:06 which is simply a camera bundle with mounts and such.
04:10 In this time, the cameras in the X lineup
04:11 have been improving in both hardware and software.
04:14 Here's each camera in the lineup
04:15 recording the same 360-degree scene
04:18 with the One X on the far left,
04:20 all the way to the X4 on the right.
04:22 The good news is Insta360 has seemingly found
04:28 what works best in a consumer 360-degree action camera.
04:33 The software is easy to use and footage is easy to edit.
04:36 The hardware looks and feels great.
04:38 The footage is punchy without looking like bad HDR,
04:41 and it is super steady.
04:44 The problem with all that is we've been saying most of that
04:46 for at least two generations,
04:48 but we definitely said all of that with the X3.
04:51 There are a few new pieces of information
04:53 I can add to the story this year with the X4.
04:56 First, 8K creates heat, and this camera does get warm.
05:00 It even overheated on me
05:01 while filming this hyperlapse on a plane
05:03 that was supposed to be a view out the plane window,
05:05 but since that was overexposed,
05:07 it became a hyperlapse of me sleeping.
05:09 Second, the battery life is solid despite the 8K.
05:12 Even after overheating, the camera cooled down a bit
05:14 and I was back filming with a battery
05:16 that still had plenty of juice.
05:18 And third, the mics are so good,
05:20 and they do a great job of picking up on voices.
05:23 Okay, wait, this is my favorite run,
05:27 and they opened it up,
05:28 but I don't know when they opened it up.
05:30 It's gonna be a mad sketch.
05:32 Here we go.
05:33 Okay, sick, sick.
05:36 Yup, yup.
05:38 Lastly, if you'll be viewing this footage
05:39 on anything larger than a phone,
05:41 8K is great and certainly crisper than the 5.7K on the X3.
05:46 That being said,
05:48 if you won't be viewing it on anything larger than a phone,
05:51 save yourself the 100 bucks and stick to the X3.
05:54 So the question that remains for me
05:56 is that if the X4 is in fact the final form of this lineup,
05:59 and like the Hero lineup,
06:00 we're just gonna see small spec bumps year over year,
06:03 instead of 360, what are you gonna do next
06:06 that is as successful as this?
06:09 This is a company that doesn't sit still.
06:12 This is a company that will surprise you
06:14 and put out, I don't know, a webcam randomly.
06:17 This is a company that wants to disrupt markets
06:21 and wants to keep outpacing itself.
06:25 This is not a company that puts out a camera
06:27 with a small spec bump.
06:29 And so I know that their solve
06:31 will be doing something that none of us expect.
06:33 And I'm excited to see what that product is.
06:37 (whistling)
06:40 (whistling)
06:43 (whistling)
06:45 (whistling)
06:47 (whistling)
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