BEST Smartphone Gimbal of 2025？ DJI OM7P vs Insta360 Flow 2 Pro

So hot on the heels of the DJI Osmo Mobile 7P with its new tracking module, Insta360 has brought out this, their new competitor AI tracker module for the Flow 2 Pro. And if you're currently in the market for a smartphone gimbal, then you're probably trying to decide between these two. And while they are both great, today we will not only be looking at some of the pros and cons of each, we will also extensively test the new tracking modules against each other to see which one is best along with a full comparison so that you can work out which one is right for you personally. And let's first start with the similarities and we'll rattle through these pretty quickly so that we can get on to what the main differences are. So looking at the size folded you can see they're pretty much the same. Both are very portable and can easily fit in a coat pocket for example. They also both feature a one-step rapid deployment and what that means is to use gimbal you only need to unfold the arm, attach your phone and you're good to go. And now that they are unfolded you can see that the DJI Osmo Mobile 7P is a fraction taller than the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro, although the difference really is tiny. And they both feature a pull-out extendable selfie stick and both these selfie sticks have tiltable heads which you can rotate up to 90 degrees. Both gimbals also feature a built-in tripod which can be simply pulled out from the and this comes in super handy especially if you want to place the gimbal down to have it track you. Comparing them however you can see that the Flow 2 Pro's legs are longer and this wider span does provide more stability compared to the 7P. When the gimbals are set down on their tripods your phone tends to act like a windseal, so on windier days while I have noticed both gimbals tend to rock a little bit, because of the 7P's shorter legs it's more likely to get blown over. They also both feature a quarter 20 mounting point on the bottom should you wish to attach them to a full-sized tripod for example. Now while on paper the Flow 2 Pro is a little bit heavier than the 7P, when holding them it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference with both handles being almost the same size. Although I have to say the DJI Osmo Mobile 7P is more ergonomic. Basically it's more comfortable to hold, at least in my opinion, as the groove in the back has a softer angle that molds it better to your hand. Now when it comes to attaching your phone, both these gimbals have the same two mounting options. They both come firstly with a clamp which simply expands over your phone to grip it and then this magnetically attaches to the head of the gimbal. And while these both work the same, I will say that the DJI 7P's clamp does feature chunkier grips that do tend to hold your phone more securely. However, this clamp does feature one big drawback compared to Insta360's version that we'll touch on later. Now in terms of phone compatibility, there's not much between the two. With both gimbals supporting phones up to 300 grams in weight, which for reference the massive iPhone 15 Pro Max I'm using in this example only weighs 220 grams. So there is margin to use accessories such as filters for your phone. Now I did mention that you can attach your phone in two ways and the second way is these sold separately additional accessory MagSafe mounts. If you have a phone or case that supports MagSafe, these simply magnetically snap onto the back allowing you to attach your phone to the gimbal. And I find these much more convenient than the traditional phone clamp. It's also worth noting that unlike the older DJI Osmo Mobile 6, both these gimbals can be should you wish to keep it attached when storing it so that you don't lose it. Now when you first look at the front of these gimbals and specifically at the controls, while they do look very different with the Flow 2 Pro having a much more minimalist design and appearance, in reality they both pretty much function the same way. First up, they both have a scroll wheel allowing you to zoom the camera in or out. Although I'm not that keen on the placement of the 7P scroll wheel as I find I'm constantly accidentally bumping the top of my thumb against it when holding the gimbal causing the camera to accidentally zoom. They also both have a joystick that allows you to move the gimbal around and with this it's the other way around with the 7P being slightly ahead as its joystick has a better grip and it's more prominent and therefore easier to move smoothly. I find the Flow 2 Pro's joystick to be a little bit notchy in use. They also both have a shutter button to start or stop a recording and a switch button to rotate the phone between horizontal and vertical orientation. There's also triggers on the back that both allow you to recenter the gimbal, enter lock mode, which is where the phone will stay pointing in the same direction regardless of how you move it, or change the phone between forward facing and backward facing. These gimbals both also feature four different gimbal modes which by and large work exactly the same way allowing you to lock or unlock different axis of movement. So firstly there is a follow mode where the tilt and pan axis follow your movements. There is also a pan follow mode where only the pan axis moves so this means the gimbal does not tilt up or down keeping your horizon consistent and there is also an FPV mode which allows movement of the pan tilt and also the roll axis to follow your movements allowing you to capture footage that looks like it was shot on an FPV drone. Both gimbals also have a spin shot mode where you can have your phone rotate to create this cool effect. However the way you use this mode does differ between the two. With the 7P there is a separate spin shot mode in which you use the joystick to rotate your phone whereas with the Flow 2 Pro in FPV mode you just use the scroll wheel to achieve the same effect. Worth mentioning if you are an absolute beginner and don't want to have to worry about these modes the Flow 2 Pro has an additional automatic mode which depending on your movement the gimbal will automatically decide which movement to follow meaning you don't have to worry about setting an individual mode. Now looking at these two gimbals closer there are other little unique design differences between them. So starting with the Flow 2 Pro you can see we first get this selfie mirror on the gimbal head which helps you frame your shot when you're using the rear facing cameras on your smartphone. There's also an indicator light on the arm which will change from solid to slowly flashing to let you know when you are recording and there is a green tracking light around the top of the handle which will illuminate when tracking is active. In contrast the OM7P's only unique design feature is this small red recording light on the gimbal arm which again lights up to let you easily see when you are recording video if you're using the rear facing cameras on your phone. Now arguably the main reason to get a smartphone gimbal is to help get super smooth footage and both these gimbals feature three-axis mechanical stabilization. Looking at some example clips of me walking and running on screen now you can see in reality there's barely any difference between the two. Both gimbals are top class when it comes to stabilization and stabilize your clips really well. You won't be disappointed with either if you're looking nice smooth footage. Now I often get asked if smartphone stabilization is so good nowadays do you really need a gimbal? Well just take a look at this comparison between these two gimbals and me using my phone handheld when walking forward while zoomed in and you can see these gimbals make a huge difference to how stable the footage is. Moving over now to take a look at battery life and this is also identical with both offering approximately 10 hours of runtime and both gimbals can also charge your phone should run low on battery. Now initially I thought this was a feature I would never use but trust me after going out and spending a few afternoons filming with my iPhone I'm shocked by how quickly this battery drains down and now I often find myself topping it back up using the gimbals. Now something I did notice is that with the Flow 2 Pro the USB-C out is on the gimbal head so what this means is it however the main USB-C port on the 7P is on the body so this doesn't move with your phone and can lead to it getting tangled while charging. Now to get around this you have to use the tracking module which we will look at in more detail shortly but with this attached you can now use its USB-C out to charge your phone and because it moves with your phone it also won't get tangled so that's something you have to be aware of. Okay now that we have covered pretty much all the similarities between these two let's take a look at the first difference and it's a big one and that is the range of motion and in this area the Flow 2 Pro beats the OM7P in pretty much every way. Firstly the Flow 2 Pro can be rolled substantially further on the roll axis compared to the OM7P as you can see in this example and when it comes to the pan axis the Flow 2 Pro blows the 7P out of the water as it has an unlimited rotation meaning if using it for tracking you can literally run around this gimbal in circles continually until you get dizzy and it will continue following you. You never have to worry about it hitting a limit and stopping. This is a problem you have to consider with the Osmo Mobile 7P which can only rotate slightly over 90 degrees to the right and around 180 degrees to the left before it hits its limits and trust me I can't tell you the amount of times I've used the new 7P to track me and then when I've came home and watched the footage back realized it's lost the track because it's hit its rotation limits. It can be super frustrating. Now there is one more axis we haven't talked about yet and that is the tilt axis and when comparing these gimbals side by side in their default setup you can see the Flow 2 Pro rotates a tiny bit further than the OM7P but you will notice that this tilting movement is quite limited on both and this can be annoying if you're trying to do a crane shot or are moving the gimbal vertically as once the tilt axis reaches its limits it will no longer keep the horizon consistent and start to follow the movement of the gimbal causing a noticeable bump or change in the footage. Well this is another area where Insta360 have innovated with the Flow 2 Pro with something called free tilt mode. If you pull out the selfie stick and tilt the head upwards and then rotate it 90 degrees to the left after doing this the Flow 2 Pro now offers unlimited rotation of the tilt axis which allows you to capture a crane shot without worrying about hitting the gimbal's rotation limits leading to much smoother footage. Okay now the second biggest area of difference between these two gimbals involves their tracking with the OM7P offering two tracking methods whereas the Flow 2 Pro has an additional tracking method giving you a total of three different ways that you can track. So let's start with the first way you can track using these gimbals and that is using their respective companion smartphone apps. So that is the DJI Mimo app for the OM7P and the Insta360 app for the Flow 2 Pro. In my testing tracking myself using these apps both work very very well and provide similar levels of impressive reliability when it comes to keeping a solid lock and re-engaging the tracking and picking me back up if I momentarily move behind an obstacle. They also both work well when tracking a faster moving subject such as yourself running and can continue to track you when you are really far away from the camera. You can also adjust the framing using the joystick with both gimbals should you not want to be in the center and both gimbals using the app can track more than just people. So you can also use the apps to track objects should you want the gimbal to assist you in keeping a landmark centered as you move around it for example, cars, vehicles, animals such as pets and more. Also tracking with these apps works really well if you have multiple people in the scene remaining locked on the correct person even if they momentarily pass behind someone else. With that being said if you are going to use either of these apps for tracking the Insta360 app does have a few additional features compared to the DJI Mimo app. Firstly you can use something called the pro framing grid which allows you to set specific framing for your subject using the grid on the screen and then the subject will be kept in that position as it's tracked. There's also a specific tracking mode if you have the Flow 2 Pro on a tripod called tracking plus and when using this mode the field of view will be increased as it switches off the internal stabilization providing even better tracking performance. I've also noticed that with my iPhone 15 Pro Max the Insta360 app allows me to zoom up to 15 times while tracking whereas the Mimo app caps the zoom at 8 times. The Insta360 app also allows auto zooming while tracking which is a really cool feature where as you move further away from the camera it will automatically zoom in as you do and it also supports multi-person tracking. So if you're part of a group and using the Flow 2 Pro to capture a selfie shot it will group you together to keep you centered to make sure nobody gets cut out of the footage. Now while the Mimo app lacks a lot of these additional modes on the other hand it does have a unique feature when it comes to tracking multiple people and that is the fact you can quick switch the tracking between them. So while tracking you will see a green box over the person the 7P is currently tracking but if anyone else is in the and you tap the white box over them it will automatically switch to now start following them. Now while this is cool I honestly think that the additional features the Insta360 app offers such as auto zooming and multi-person tracking in real world use are just much more useful. Now while we're talking about the apps if you're an Android user it's very important to be aware of the fact that not all Android phones get access to all of the features with both of these gimbals and their companion apps so do expect some compatibility issues if you're an Android user. Now when it comes to the features within the apps again Insta360 are that little bit ahead as their app not only allows you to switch between your phone's front and rear cameras while recording but there is also an option for Apple ProRes a teleprompter mode and a 360 degree panorama mode all features currently not available on the DJI Mimo app. Okay but let's say you want to have the gimbal track you but you don't want to have to use the companion app maybe you want to use your favorite video app or a social media app such as Instagram to record a story well with both these gimbals that is possible thanks to their attachable tracking modules allowing you to use tracking with any app of your choice. Now these two trackers do have some differences to start with the DJI Osmo Mobile 7P the tracker only works with the clamp whereas with the Flow 2 Pro because it attaches directly to the gimbal you can use either the clamp or the magsafe mount. So to start tracking with these modules you simply press the trigger on the gimbal once and once tracking is enabled you will find this works really well when moving around close to both gimbals. With that being said though in my testing I found Insta360's tracker to perform better and be more reliable when using them to track at much further distances Insta360's tracker remained locked on me while DJI's tracker did start to struggle and I also had multiple instances where DJI's tracker would just lose me randomly or not pick me back up after reappearing from behind an obstacle while Insta360's tracker had no problems in the exact same circumstances. Both of these tracking modules can also be installed forward or rear facing and they support gesture control allowing you to start tracking by simply showing them your palm for example. However the DJI Osmo Mobile 7P also allows you to reframe the composition when tracking by making a double L gesture something currently not possible on the Flow 2 Pro. Now both these tracking modules also double as a fill light which can come in super handy when filming in darker situations and they both have different levels of brightness and colour temperature you can select. However I have to say I much prefer how this is adjusted on the Osmo Mobile 7P. With it you can turn the light on and change its settings with the scroll wheel allowing you to do this one-handed and adjust it while filming without affecting the smoothness of the footage whereas with the Flow 2 Pro the buttons are actually on this side of the light meaning you have to use your other hand to make changes and it's impossible to do this without causing some disturbance in your footage and it's more fiddly it has to be said. The 7P's tracking module also has another trick up its sleeve and that is the fact it is also an integrated receiver for the mic mini. So once you connect it to your smartphone via an included cable you can now use the audio from the mic mini transmitter without needing to attach an additional receiver. Now if you remember I did mention that the Flow 2 Pro has an additional tracking method over the 7P and that is actually using something called Apple DotKet which is an integrated tracking technology from Apple not available on the 7P. This was introduced not that long ago as a feature on the now older Flow Pro and has continued support with the new Flow 2 Pro. The way this works is also very simple. At the top of the gimbal you will see this NFC logo which stands for Near Field Communication and if you hold your phone near it you will see a prompt appear on the screen. Now once you hit connect after a few moments your iPhone will now have paired wirelessly via NFC with the Flow 2 Pro and DotKet is now ready to use. Now this tracking method can be started the same way as before by simply tapping the trigger and it also works within 200 plus compatible iOS apps. Essentially any app that uses the iPhone camera such as Instagram, TikTok, Blackmagic camera app etc and because this is using Apple DotKet you don't need to have the additional tracking module installed. Now while this works well it has to be said it is the most limited tracking method out of the three and the biggest limitation is the fact it only works with iPhones so if you have an Android device you cannot use this tracking method. The tracking is also slower to respond and it will struggle if you move fast or don't stand close to the phone so do watch out for that. Okay so now the big one price which is a very important factor when choosing between these two and there is an important difference in that the DJI Osmo Mobile 7p comes with the tracking module as standard whereas the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro does not include the tracker with its cheapest combo. You can pick it up without the tracker for slightly more than the 7p or if you want the tracker the AI tracker bundle is that little bit more a game. So the Flow 2 Pro is more expensive and if you wish to pick either of these gimbals up or find out more about them I have put links where you can do just that in the description down below. So which gimbal do I recommend? Well in my time testing I find both to be very good. I don't think you'll be unhappy with either but as you can see from this comparison they both have their own strengths and weaknesses. However I personally think that while the DJI Osmo Mobile 7p is a good gimbal for the small additional cost the Flow 2 Pro simply comes with a wider range of features such as Apple dock kit, the Insta360 app has more options and it has a better range of motion. In fact I think the unlimited pan rotation is worth the extra cost alone and this would be the gimbal I recommend picking up. But what do you think? Which one of these two would you pick up and why? Let me know in the comments down below. Now before you go if you've liked this video and learned something new please let me know by giving me the thumbs up and clicking the like button down below. And if you love all things gimbals but also drones, action cameras, 360 cameras and more and want to know how to get better images and more cinematic videos with your gear then I recommend you check out my channel where I have a ton of other content to help you level up your game. And if you don't want to miss any of my upcoming videos then please consider clicking that subscribe button down below and when you're down there be sure to check the notification bell so that you will be alerted when my new videos are released. It would be greatly appreciated. And if you want to stick around and watch a few more now here's a few I personally recommend and I'll keep you back any further. Thank you so much for watching. I'll catch you.