Review: DJI OSMO 3 is a More Powerful & Compact Smartphone Gimbal!

It is Andrew here from Apple Insider, and today we are checking out the DJI Osmo mobile three and yes, this is it. It is a way more compact device and more powerful a device, and it ever has been in the past. But there are a lot of changes to this third generation gimbal, and we want to see if it’s going to retain its ground is pretty much being the class of leading smartphone gimbal out there. So we’re gon na throw it through its paces, starting off let’s check out the specs of the device and the body and the design starting out right there on the front. You have that multifunctional joystick, as well as the M button. That also doubles, as the power button has a few other changes there too. So it can change. The mode of the camera can turn this thing on and off put into standby mode. Few other features like that. We also have the shutter button. On top of that red little circle and the series of LEDs that are going to represent the battery life off the gimbal speaking of battery life, you should get about 15 hours of use time out of this from a full charge. Along the left hand, side of the gimbal you’re going to see the T and W that’s gon na, be your digital zoom in and out when using the accompanying DJI memo app it’s going to connect to your phone over Bluetooth and you can zoom in and zoom Out while taking a photo or a video on the right hand, side, we have USB C up from the USB a micro slot that we had in the past, so new USBC micro.

Then we have USB a USB a was there before on the second generation. But what is even more cool now is that it can charge your phone while you’re recording thanks to the new design. You can actually charge your phone, it doesn’t block the microphones or the charging port on the bottom, so you can now charge your phone or plug in microphone. Anything like that. While you are filming, then, if we go ahead and open this up on the front, you’ll see the return of the trigger guess. The trigger button has a turn it’s, not quite as clicky one of the large as it was in the past, but the trigger has returned. We love the trigger it’s, really nice, while filming being able to lock in that POV or be able to switch cameras between the front in the back and the other tricks that that trigger has up its sleeve. The is changing design of the fact. This whole thing is now foldable it just folds in half, there comes completely up rotates around, though that design chain it comes with a few trade offs. First, you have to balance this each and every time that you put your phone in previously, you had an adjustable arm, so you’d set it and forget it never have to worry about it again. The DJI Osmo mobile three. Every time you put your phone in, you have to rebalance it. The good news is, it is not that difficult.

It just takes a few moments and you can even balance it with stuff like a moment lens on there, which is quite hefty without having to use a counterweight. So we’ve got our device balanced here. It only took a moment, and there are a few cool things we want to go through so first there’s a really in neat standby mode. So this allows you to use your phone while it’s in the gimbal itself, just a triple tap of the mode button. The M button – and you can see it, rotates the camera down and you can actually just now fold this whole thing forward and use your phone while it’s still in the gimbal. So it’s a really nice way to be able to use your phone and then you simply pop it back up and it brings your phone back in the street in position. So you want to review some footage or something a really quick way to do that without having to unmount your phone or anything else. Another new feature that I want to touch on real quick is called a quick roll. It allows you to easily change orientation of your camera from normal shooting horizontally to a more portrait mode instead of landscape, so it simply takes a DoubleTap of the mode button there and it alternates the camera up in nice. Smooth quick motion, you know, if you do anything manually, you don’t, have to manually, do know that shenanigans to get your phone to move, just a double tap and your phone will smoothly switch orientations really great feature.

Now, while we do love the fact that the Osmo is now collapsible, it fits into your bag, so much easier, no one’s using this really around their house, be able to take it with you and have it much more. Compact is a huge benefit. The problem is that redesigned that caused a few issues of its own, so we take a look again at the gimbal enos. This bar now here go straight across so as you go into what’s only noise like flashlight or torch late mode. Basically something like this and you can move the phone, the camera up and down the phone doesn’t bend that way you lose some of the tilt with a new redesign. So as you go, you can see immediately. The phone starts to follow because it’s just gon na hit this bar so same thing with going up there’s, not nearly enough emotion. We can do with the joystick here, so you can see the limitations that’s. It that’s really what you got to work with there, not a lot of vertical movement and same thing with going down, not a lot of it downwards motion, so you’re really limited in your tilting with the new version of the Osmo, so there are ways around it. So you have it here a little bit awkward on camera, you’re filming this way, and you want to kind of do your torchlight updown move the way you do it now is you have to rotate and then you can move down and then you can move up Because it’s moving this arm out of the way so it’s a little bit awkward it’s, not the normal way of doing things, but it still works it’s just a little bit different.

So if you’ve been using the Osmos for a while, you probably have some muscle memory built up you’re going to need to change that, and that was something that we struggled with a lot while filming this review before we take this thing outside and show some actual Sample footage: I want to go through just a couple more changes. We saw this time around now supports Bluetooth. 5 active track has been updated to version 3.0 and it is a whole lot better. Now we did run into some situations, as we were using where we would turn our head away from the camera, which would confuse active track, but doesn’t be better. It now works with more beards and sunglasses and hats things that they couldn’t really tell as much in the past. So active track is definitely improved with version 3.0 sports mode as well, which can be activated with trigger it’s a lot smoother a lot faster. So, if you’re moving it following your kids, your dogs, whatever you’re filming you need to go quickly, it works a lot better with the upgraded sports mode. We also love the new gesture support so using something like a peace sign or a palm can start or stop. Recording and then just depending on what mode you’re in so, if you’re in photo mode, video mode it’s going to start or stop any of those. So it’s going to take a picture start a video depending what you’re doing so it’s a really easy way to get yourself in front of that camera, especially you add on the actual tripod kit, and you have this on a tripod.

You have this back there you get in front of the camera. It’S like your post, throw a peace sign and it’ll instantly record, and for us the gestures work extremely well. So the gesture is pretty really nice touch for the DJI Osmo for mobile three, so that pretty much covers it. Let’S go ahead and take this outside film. Some videos and let’s show you some sample footage. So here we are outside you’ve got our iPhone 10’s max connected to our DJI Osmo mobile 3. Using the MIMO app is very easy to record, pool, focus and completely control the gimbal and everything comes out very smooth. You can see this here is shot on our iPhone free hand and very jumpy, even with the it built in stabilization, and here we are without eyes nor the same shot, moving the same speed and it is so much smoother and more fluid. We even tried doing things with our dog. Our dog is a bit crazy, crazy, hyper sport mode. We were easily able to keep up with him just with the light. It was a little bit hard to actually see him on the camera. Sometimes we lost him in frame, but even as he was running around doing all these little tricks, we were easily able to keep up with him and running with him and keeping the Osmo trained on him was incredibly smooth footage, and here is my wife running as You can see even if she’s running and jumping up and down a little bit, everything is still smooth.

We didn’t spend as much time with the previous features such as time lapse because those are available than previous iterations, but what we tested was great. So what do you guys think that is the DJI Osmo mobile 3? It is a huge step over the last generation, though there are still some fall backs like that bar and the shooting angles and the amount of tilt that you can do. So. What do you guys think are the benefits outweighing those downsides? Let us know down below in the comments and share with me your thoughts, your sample footage over on twitter at andrew underscore osu. If you want to pick one up for yourself, you can grab it at the link in the description. Hey everyone. Did you guys, like that video, be sure to click on that like button, so we can create content that we know that you guys want to see and follow Apple Insider in all social media channels.



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