Insta360 X5 Review | Trusted Reviews

Introduction

I was quite surprised when a review sample of the Insta360 X5 arrived at my door. After all, it was only a year ago that the company launched the Insta360 X4, a superb 360 action camera that was far and away the best-in-class choice for anyone looking to capture everything going on around them. Did the world really need a replacement already?

The answer, according to Insta360 at least, is yes. Despite the X4 garnering glowing reviews all round, there was definite room for improvement – hence the X5’s arrival with promises of improved image quality, sound, battery life and build quality.

Having spent a few days in the Insta360 X5’s company, any initial scepticism I had has been dispersed. This is a stunning 360 action camera that truly builds on the X4’s sturdy foundations. Read on and I’ll tell you how.

Design and build quality

• 200g in weight and 46 x 124.5 x 38.2mm in size
• User-replaceable lenses available
• Waterproof up to 15m without a case

The X5 looks almost identical to the X4, sharing the same Mars Bar-like shape and size and 2.5-inch touchscreen. It’s lightweight and very pocketable, although the bulging lenses on either side will need constant cleaning and dusting if you don’t invest in Insta360’s carry case or rubber lens cap accessories.

The way they protrude makes them likely to hit objects or the ground if dropped or while being used, too – and to that end Insta360 has built them from a new toughened glass that is reportedly twice as strong and scratch-resistant as that used on the X4.

If you do damage them, though, it’s now possible to swap them out yourself for cheap in just a few minutes thanks to a new lens replacement kit sold by Insta360. That reassurance means you can put the camera in some precarious situations without worrying too much about what might happen to it. It’s tough besides that, too. Now IP68-rated, it’s waterproof to 15m without an additional case – a welcome 5m increase over the X4.

On the base of the X5 you’ll find a standard tripod mount, essential for attaching it to a selfie stick or other mounting setup. A new feature here, though, are clip points for Insta360’s quick-release mount (sold separately), allowing you to instantly attach mounting fingers and fixing the camera to standard action camera mounting accessories. 

As with the X4, physical connectivity is just a USB-C 3.0 port, which handles charging, reverse charging (i.e. using the X5 as a power bank) and data transfer. There’s also a removable battery and a microSD card slot for storage. Insta360 recommends a UHS-I V30 card or faster; I used a V60 card and, as expected, experienced no issues with read/write speed at all.

Performance and features

• Works with Insta360 mobile app
• New PureVideo and InstaFrame recording modes
• 2400mAh battery and fast charge support

Insta360’s cameras specialise in making recording 360 videos as easy as possible, and that’s very much still the case here. With automatic levelling and near-seamless stitching, the X5 comes as close to point-and-shoot simplicity as this kind of camera gets; it even scrubs your selfie stick out of existence automatically.

Once you’ve recorded a 360 video or taken a 360 photo, you can reframe it (i.e. zoom in or out and crop to get the viewing angle you want) using the company’s mobile or desktop apps, add music and captions and then export to your phone or computer.

The mobile app features a powerful AI auto editor, which I loved. I just picked the clips I liked and the app cooked up a highlight reel complete with soundtrack and transitions, ready to be shared immediately on social media. For a lazy editor like me, it’s a no-brainer to use that rather than spend hours manually cutting, reframing and tweaking a video, but the good news is that there’s no right way to do things: you can go fully manual if you want (even down to recording video in a flat I-Log profile for colour grading), tweak the AI-created videos or just use them untouched.

There are a range of different capture modes available, both for still photos and video, but the most interesting to me are video-related. New additions to the line-up are PureVideo, designed for indoor and night-time shooting where ambient light is poor, and InstaFrame, a time-saving mode that creates two videos: one flat video for instant use and a second 360 video to capture everything, giving you the insurance of extra angles should you need them later.

I’ll get into video quality in the next section, but in terms of operation and processing things are swift and smooth here, largely thanks to the trio of new processing chips on board. The camera can get a little warm when recording 8K video, and Insta360 urges users to only record longer 8K clips in well ventilated, cooler environments – but I never actually experienced any overheating during my time reviewing the X5.

I did find that 8K recording and transferring footage to my phone run the X5’s battery down very quickly. Insta360 claims it can record for up to 185 minutes, but I think that’ll only apply with video settings dialled right down and minimal use of any functions besides recording. Thankfully, it supports fast charging, and with an appropriate charger the battery go from empty to 80% full in as little as 20 minutes.

Video quality

• 8K 30fps or 5.7K 60fps recording modes
• Videos output at up to 1440p
• Built-in wind muffler for microphones

The new sensors can capture video at a staggering 11K, down-sampling it to 8K for editing. I should caution that the raw 360 file is 8K resolution, not the video you end up sharing from the camera, because the editing process will result in a crop as you ‘punch out’ a section of the 360 video. That means the final video that comes out of the editor can be up to 1440p in size – around half the resolution of 4K, in other words.

The video quality is impressive, though. Thanks to those large sensors and Insta360’s software tricks, default quality is punchy, contrast-rich and engaging, with bright colours and lots of detail. If you use the HDR+ recording modes (unavailable with 8K recording), you also get loads of colour detail in both darker and brighter areas of the image, which is ideal for sunny outdoors videos. I also liked the smoothness of the 5.7K videos at 60fps, which suited fast-paced action perhaps better than the 30fps top frame rate available with 8K recording.

That being said, 8K/30fps works very well in general – even in low light situations thanks to PureVideo. If you’re a travel vlogger, urban explorer or happy with a more sedate pace in your videos, 8K feels like the way to go to get the sharpest possible results. I can’t say enough about how good the low light performance here is compared with other 360 cameras. In the past, I just wouldn’t have used a 360 camera at night – the results would have been far too grainy and smeary – but the X5 changes all that. 

The X5 does include built-in microphones for capturing sound of course, and while professional vloggers will probably opt for third-party external mics instead, the internal mics have been improved over the X4’s. There’s now a software-based mode for adding clarity to voices, while a built-in mesh windscreen reduces (but doesn’t remove) interference from gusts of wind.

For photos, you can choose between 72MP and 18MP capture, and the results look quite impressive – albeit best when viewed via an app that lets you scroll around within the photo to look at different viewpoints, VR-style. I don’t think many people will make a lot of use of the photo functions on the X5 personally – the video side of things feels a lot more useful in creating content for sharing.

Should you buy it?