I Tested the Next-Gen 360 Camera (Insta360 X5)

This is the new Insta360 X5. It's probably the single biggest improvement I've ever seen to a 360 degree camera. So I did the only logical thing. I flew 5,000 miles across two time zones to the Maldives. To find out both why you would ever use something like this if you can just use your phone to shoot, but also what does this new camera do that the company's existing 360 cameras couldn't already do. So thanks to Insta for sponsoring and getting us super early access, let's very literally dive in. So the entire purpose of a 360 degree camera is, unlike shooting with your phone, where you have to focus on what you're capturing and if you miss something, then too bad, this captures a 360 degree sphere of video so that you never miss anything and you can decide later what bits you want to focus on while being able to make this selfie stick completely disappear from your footage. But that's what 360 cameras have always done. So what is actually new here? Well, if you've paid a lot of attention to the smartphone market these days, then you'll probably be aware that we'd be lucky to get a 20% improvement to one of the camera sensors on them. Do you know what they've done here? Each camera on the X5 has a 144% larger sensor than the already 9 out of 10 rated X4 camera from just last year, which is such a boost to video quality that the second you start recording with the thing, it's like you're shooting with four different cameras simultaneously. Because you're capturing all angles at once, and now in such high resolution, 8K, which Insta360 then processes in 11K using something called super sampling, it means each individual viewpoint is almost the equivalent of a full phone camera's image. Just to be clear, you're capturing all of this in one go, in one shot. There is an even bigger perk that comes with this quality upgrade, but we're getting there. Because before that, you will almost definitely notice number seven, the audio upgrade. So here's the thing with recording on phones. I think the iPhone, to be honest, is a fantastic starting camera and the sound quality is incredible on it. But where it starts to break down is when you're trying to use it for extreme conditions that it just wasn't designed for. So let's say, for example, that I am in about five minutes going to be absolutely pacing it on this jet ski. Phone microphones aren't designed to be able to block out wind noise, so your end clip is just going to sound like this. The X5 is designed with all of this stuff in mind, so it's just naturally going to sound a lot better. It's partly down to software, but it's mostly just that Insta have had the space here to put in a proper, physical, multi-layer steel mesh wind guard. But what if you accidentally drop the thing while you're on your high-speed adventures? There's no brakes on this bike. Oh God. Ah! Whoa! Right. I nearly full-sanded myself into the water. Well, one of the key bits of feedback that Insta360 have been getting over the years is lenses are fragile. And so there's been a lot of users saying, I feel like I should play it safe with my camera, as opposed to getting the exact shot that I want. So Insta have tried a bunch of things to address that. Like last year, they started including these free lens guards with the product, but this I think is the ultimate solution. With the X5, you can actually just swap out the lens entirely if anything happens. And you can do it yourself. Like, imagine how crazy it would be if you could do that on your phone. Like just unscrew your lens and put a new one in if you scratch it or chip it. And that is also paired with even stronger glass on the lenses themselves. It's not sapphire, but it's sapphire level durability now, thanks to a new diamond-like coating process. Literally 100% stronger than on the X4. And the other side to that durability coin is waterproofing. Insta360 have essentially gone around the entire design and targeted all the points of vulnerability, like the USB-C port. Which means that instead of the previous ability to withstand 10 metre depths, this can now handle 15 metres. For context, by the way, an iPhone 16 Pro Max could survive theoretically about 6 metres. But you'd also have a bunch of other issues crop up, like your screen going haywire and saltwater just causing long-term damage internally. Seeing the progress in battery has been quite insane too. The first 360 camera these guys came out with, the One X, had a 60-minute runtime. That then went up to 80, then all the way to 135, and now it is sitting at 185 minutes. You do still have to use endurance mode to get that battery life, but we are still talking 185-minute runtime while shooting in 360-degree 5.7K quality, plus fast charging, which is not something that you tend to see camera companies focusing on, but this thing gets up to about 80% in 20 minutes. Now one thing that you can just tell this company has been thinking about with this generation is, how do we design this camera to be appealing to people for who the only other camera they've ever used is just their phone? Because one new thing they've added, which I think makes things a lot easier on this front, is InstaFrame mode. So in the past, you either had to choose, I'm going to shoot in 360 degrees so that I can pick what I'm going to focus on later and make sure I don't miss anything, or I'm going to shoot in something like Follow Me mode, which is a flat video that uses the 360 vision to constantly keep you in the middle of the shot. The X5 though, can shoot what you're seeing right now, which is both types of video at the same time, with InstaFrame mode. It's just the most mindless thing, having both the ability to tune everything afterwards, but also this instant, immediately ready to post video at the same time. That's one of the things that they've done to make things easier this time around. It's not the only thing. Like for example, twist to shoot. While the camera is on the selfie stick, two little twists and you can start and stop recording without even having to touch the thing. Or the Insta360 app. I always thought it was decently intuitive, but it's now more organised. The thumbnails automatically recognise and highlight people, so at a glance you can see even clearer which shot is which. And it's also now just way quicker to export footage straight to your phone's photos library. Plus there is now an Insta360 cloud, which can free up your SD card space immediately, and also means your friends and family can jump on and see what you've shot. All finished off with AI editing and AI effects that just work better. Way higher success rate of seeing an idea you like, clicking it, and then being actually really happy with how that idea has translated to your footage. But do you want to know the best bit? Well it turns out that it's not just 144% bigger image sensors helping out with the image quality this time around. It's also that this camera has had massive increases in computing power. Literally 140% more power thanks to a triple AI chip configuration. And that has a whole load of side perks. Like for example if you want to turn on active HDR mode, you can now do that at 60 frames per second instead of 30. Or just generally crisper details and more natural colours being captured than the previous X4. But do you want to know the single starkest difference that you get because of this? It's pure video. Video that essentially takes advantage of the full power available on this camera. With AI noise reduction, optimised dynamic range, and this basically erases what I'd consider the final remaining concern that people have had with 360 cameras. Performance has always been good in the day, but it's night where you start to notice, frankly, a spectacular improvement in noise and general visibility. So long and short of it, this is the best 360 camera on the market. Now, you don't necessarily need one if you already are recording with a high-end phone, but the advantages of this become more and more clear compared to a phone the more adventurous you're planning on being. So link below to check out the Insta360 X5.