DO NOT BUY the Insta360 GO 3S!

Hello, welcome back to a new video.

So as you can see, I have the brand new

Insta360 GO 3S 4K action cam from

Insta360, and I'm going to be talking

about why I feel kind of disappointed with

this action cam and starting to regret my

purchase.

So as you can see, I have the Insta360 GO

3S here, and I have my old action cams.

I have the very old GoPro Hero 7, which I

bought about 5 or 6 years ago, and I also

have the Osmo Action, which I bought also

about 5 years ago.

So these are pretty outdated action cams,

and I decided to get this one because I

wanted to get a newer camera to have a

more updated modern camera for my videos.

So I thought this would be a good choice.

So as you may know, there's a lot of

reviews on this camera already on YouTube,

and the problem with these reviews is that

most of these reviews are sponsored

reviews, and the YouTubers have been given

the camera for free, or they're even being

paid by Insta360 to make the review.

So as you can imagine, those reviews are

kind of biased, and they're just going to

be very positive, and they're not going to

be negative or honest about what this

camera is actually like to use.

For me, I am not sponsored, and I'm not

being paid by Insta360 to make this video,

so I will give you my completely honest

review of this video— of this camera after

using it for a while.

Okay, so to turn on the camera, you gotta

hold down this power button on the side

for a few seconds, and I was kind of

surprised at how slow it is to start up.

It does that little spinning loading

thing, and I also get this weird firmware

incompatibility warning every time I turn

it on.

And even when I connect it to the app, it

doesn't seem to download any firmware

updates, so I'm not sure how to get rid of

that.

Now, the main thing I notice about this

camera is— I don't know if you can see it

very well but the, the video preview on

the little screen is kind of laggy.

It doesn't feel super responsive, so that

is kind of irritating when you're trying

to use the screen to preview your video

footage.

And not only that, the quality of the

video preview on the preview screen is

very bad, and I don't know why.

I guess it's like a connection thing.

So for example, if you detach the camera,

which is kind of fiddly, so So to detach

it, you've got to hold down this unlock

button, and then you've got to really

squeeze the lens, which I don't like doing

because I feel like I'm going to break it.

You've got to really squeeze it and really

pull it out like that, put quite a lot of

strength into that to pull it out.

I think it should just fall out when you,

when you hold down that button, it should

just fall out.

But because there's a magnet in there

holding it in, you've got to really put

it— I don't see the point of having what's

the point of having a magnet inside of

the, the pod to hold it in place when it

should really use clips and then you hold

that to release the clip?

So it's got a clip to hold it in and a

magnet.

I think it's a little bit overkill.

But anyway, like I was saying, the video

preview on this screen— so what I'm doing

now is I'm holding this small part of the

camera to film and it's wirelessly

connected to the pod, so you can see me

talking now.

And as you can see, the video preview

looks all blocky and pixelated.

And also there's at least a 1 or 2 second

delay.

You can see my lips moving as I'm

speaking.

There's like a delay

from what I'm actually doing to what you

see on the screen.

So yeah, the video preview on the screen

is not really that good, and it's kind of

lacking in luster in my opinion.

So look at how blocky it is.

Look at that, it's just really blocky.

Yeah, you can see what you're filming on

the little screen, which is great and

everything, but it just makes you feel

like, wow, this footage really sucks.

Look at that.

Obviously the actual footage of your

recording is not going to look like that,

and it's going to be much higher quality

when you transfer the file over to your

phone or over to your computer.

But yeah, this is, this is not great, to

be honest.

Look at this, see?

And the more you move it around like that,

the worse it gets, the more blocky and

pixelated it looks.

See, look, the more I move it, and then it

just shuts itself off for some reason

after a while.

And you gotta tap it.

Yeah, you load the preview back in.

So yeah, look at this, it's not very

impressive for the price you pay.

Now the price I got for this was about

£360, I think, and I got the 128GB

edition.

Now you might be wondering, why does it

have storage as if it's like a Steam Deck

or a Nintendo Switch?

So as you can see on the body,

if I can focus, there's no—

why isn't my camera focusing?

There's no SD card slot because there's no

actual SD card for the camera.

When I first got it, I thought, where's

the SD card slot?

How do I take my photos out of it and my

videos out of it?

It has built-in storage, which is really

stupid.

So you can't upgrade the storage by

getting a better SD card.

You're stuck with the storage that you

have with the model that you got.

So there's a cheaper model that only has

64GB, which is not very good because 64GB

is not going to last you very long.

128GB is a bit more expensive, and that

seems like the sweet spot.

But again, if you want to upgrade the

storage, it is not really possible.

So it also is a bit fiddly when you want

to transfer the files to a computer

because now there's no SD card that you

can just pop out and then pop into your

computer.

You've got to connect to the app

wirelessly and transfer the files

wirelessly, or you have to buy this

special reader thing called the Quick

Reader.

It's like a little white thing you pop out

the camera and then you magnetically

attach it to the reader, and then that has

an SD card built into it, and then you

plug that into the computer.

So if you want to have SD card

compatibility, you've got to buy this

extra gadgets for more money and then faff

about plugging that in and attaching that

and all that kind of stuff.

Also, when you want to preview your videos

on the media preview thing on the camera,

you can swipe— you swipe left, you swipe

left from the left side, and then you've

got your videos, and then you press play.

And as you can see

The video quality of the video preview is

shockingly bad.

It's so blocky and pixelated.

It's not very good if you want to see how

your videos turned out after you shot

them.

The only way to preview your videos at

high quality is again if you connect it to

the stupid app, and then you've got to

disconnect your phone from Wi-Fi to

connect to the camera's Wi-Fi, and then

you've got to then transfer the files over

or preview it on your phone, but then you

don't have internet anymore because now

you're not connected to the Wi-Fi anymore

because you've connected it to the camera

Wi-Fi.

It's just a bit annoying.

So yeah, it's a bit disappointing that you

can't really— I mean, look at this video,

the preview is just

really bad.

Also, you get quite a lot of different

shooting modes, so you press this button

on the side and then it scrolls through

the shooting modes.

Most of them are kind of rubbish, like

photo mode.

Why would you take photos with this?

I don't know what— every time it also,

when you stop pressing it, it just chooses

the mode that you've landed on, which is

kind of annoying because you can't read.

I want to read the little tooltip, but I

can't read it because when I let go, it

just activates it.

Time-lapse, you've got time shift.

I don't know, how is that different to

time-lapse?

You've got slow motion, you've got loop

recording, which is kind of like a car

dash cam, I guess.

Which is okay, I guess, if you just want

to continuously loop over your memory

instead of having to delete older files.

Then you could use it as like a CCTV

camera.

And then you've got— what else?

Interval— where is it?

Interval photo.

I thought that was for videos.

But it seems like it's only for photos.

Take photos at specific intervals.

Now I don't really see the point of that.

People keep going on about how it's such a

great feature.

The idea is it keeps automatically taking

photos, I guess if you want to do a

time-lapse.

Also, it's kind of disappointing that the

screen is a bit small.

So this is my Osmo Action, which is the

very first Osmo Action that came out, so

it's really old.

But look how big the screen is compared to

the Insta360 GO 3S is kind of small,

and again, the preview is like very blocky

and pixelated compared to the Osmo Action

preview, which looks great.

It's almost identical to the video that

you'll be shooting from what you see on

the preview.

Same with the GoPro.

So the GoPro, if you turn it on,

um, Even the GoPro screen— well, the GoPro

screen is about the same size as the

Insta.

I wasn't really happy with the GoPro 7

anymore because it took ages to turn on

and it was kind of glitchy, the software.

But the software on the Insta360 GO 3S is

pretty good, it's pretty snappy.

So look, swipe down for the menu, it's

pretty responsive.

Swipe up for video settings, swipe right

for more video settings, filters, stuff

like that.

Your media here.

Yeah, so I don't have any problems with

the software, I think that's good.

Now I want to talk about the accessories

because I feel like some of it's good but

some of it's not very well designed.

So you've got the pendant, the necklace

thing, so what you do is you detach the

camera part like that, put this under your

shirt or under your jumper, and then this

magnetically attaches to it.

That's fine, I don't really have a problem

with that.

And then you also got this thing.

Now this thing seems like they kind of

missed an opportunity.

So you put this in there and now you can

swivel it down or up, down or up,

and you've got this clip.

You know, the clip is really stiff, you

really gotta pull it apart, and then you

need a third hand to slot in something

like a cap.

But I wanted to put it on my beanie, I

just couldn't get my beanie edge to slot

into there because it's too floppy and

soft.

So I feel like they missed an opportunity

by not making this back plate magnetic.

So, so here we have a metal radiator, and

yeah, I can just attach it magnetically to

the radiator because the camera has a

magnet on the back.

So yeah, that's great and everything, you

can attach it to metal objects like this,

it's pretty cool.

The main problem though is it's fixed.

It's only pointing straight ahead.

You can't like tilt it down a bit.

You can't, you can't tilt it down or tilt

it up, but you could do that with this

little plastic thing like this.

The problem is this is not magnetic, so

look, that's not going to stick.

It would have been great if this bit was

magnetic and then you could stick this

onto things and then you could pivot it

down or pivot it up so you can have

different viewpoints.

And then you've got this thing, so you've

got like a little mount thing where the

camera,

um, yeah, the, the body of the camera.

So you put that back on there and then you

put this— they really love magnets, don't

they?

And you put this, clips on there, and then

this bit can screw onto one of those screw

mounts and it comes with this sticky base,

so you screw this into here.

They should have just made this bit

magnetic too, I don't know why they made

it a screw mount.

So you screw that on, you peel this thing

off, and this bit's really sticky, so the

idea is you stick it on things and then

you've got like this mount,

but I don't know what this flappy bit here

is for.

Do I just cut it off?

It's attached by rubber,

Do you loop it round like that,

or do I peel this off and stick that to

that bit?

And then what do you do with that?

Why is there a hole in it?

So yeah, I'm a bit confused what this— I

don't know what that flappy bit's for.

It's kind of weird.

And then you've got this ball head which

is quite stiff, so it stays in place and

it's quite maneuverable.

Um, so yeah, that's quite good if you want

to attach it to random things.

I'm thinking of attaching it to the inside

of my car dashboard in front of the

steering wheel, so I've got direct POV

mode viewpoint when I'm trying to do some

driving videos.

And also the video quality, although you

do get 4K quality as advertised, um, it

looks fine if it's daylight, but it

doesn't really blow your socks away

compared to, to a mobile phone camera.

Latest mobile phone cameras are so good,

they've also got 4K.

There's not a huge difference between this

image quality and the image quality you'd

find on the latest iPhones, for example.

And I guess that's to be expected because

it's supposed to be an action cam.

The strength isn't exactly going to be its

video quality.

The strength is its versatility and the

way that you can use it in different ways,

and it's small and you can attach it to

stuff.

That is the main selling point of it.

So obviously you can't do things like

blurring out the background like I'm doing

right now.

You won't be able to do that with an

action cam.

Also, low-light quality is extremely poor.

Low light is so bad that you would

probably not want to use this anytime

other than daytime.

So really it's a daytime camera, not

really a nighttime camera.

So yeah, it's a bit disappointing that

things like the technology hasn't really

advanced much since 5 years ago when it

comes to low light and background blurring

and image quality, and we still have

problems because it's a small sensor.

It would be nice if they could fit a

bigger sensor, but then they would have to

make the entire device bigger, I guess.

So for those reasons, I'm gonna have to

give this camera a 6.2 out of 10.

Yeah, we'll see how I get on with it.

I'll have to do more video testing, but

for now, that is my review.