Insta360 X5 action camera review: An “industry leading camera”

Fire up any social media platform and it won’t take long before you come across some footage shot by a 360 camera and here we’ve got a second camera from the brand sitting at a slightly higher (and definitely premium) price point.

• Check out more tri tech reviews here

360 filming experience

Distinctive because of its slightly warped, fish-eye-style finish, the footage is much more than a lens effect. The all-seeing camera design allows the user to capture any angle without having to worry too much about framing, shooting forward, backwards and everywhere in between with it possible to pick the focal point during the editing phase or hand that task over to the Insta360 app’s AI tool.

Insta360 has been the market leader in this segment since its launch of the ONE X back in 2018, and the X5 is its latest, range-topping option. The specs alone make it pretty impressive – ability to shoot 8K30fps in 360 video (or 5.7K60fps if you don’t need incredibly high definition footage), 4K60fps in single-lens, almost three-hours of battery life – while the replaceable lenses and clearer audio make it a worthwhile upgrade on its predecessor, the X4.

In use

In practise, it was a novelty to shoot using the 360 camera and opened up a whole new world of options when filming. When mounted to my handlebars using the specially designed outfront computer mount accessory, I was able to revolutionise my riding footage, recording POV clips of descents, lock on to other riders when passing through a group and honing in on the pain face when out of the saddle on a climb. When running, a slightly off angle with the selfie stick didn’t mean that the content I was capturing was unusable, and the ca…