Insta360 Flow 2 Pro review

Verdict

The Insta360 Flow 2 Pro is easily the best smartphone gimbal for most people, but if you’re a professional content creator with an expensive external mic, you’d be better off with last year’s Insta360 Flow Pro.

Introduction

Despite the name, the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro is actually the third smartphone gimbal in Insta360’s lineup – and it’s easily its best one yet.

It seems strange to think that Insta360 has only had a presence in the smartphone gimbal market since the start of 2023. For the longest time, it was DJI that wore the crown with its fantastic Osmo Mobile range, while a handful of alternative options from Zhiyun have helped to keep a sense of competition going.

When the Insta360 Flow hit the scene however, it was clear that the company had observed what made the competition great whilst recognising areas for improvement. It was by far the best of its kind that we had tested, and now with a ton of new improvements to boot, the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro is posed to raise the bar once more.

Price

As is to be expected with continuing economic trends, there is a price increase in the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro over the Insta360 Flow Pro but luckily, it’s only minimal.

There are two options, a standard bundle and a creator bundle, which cost £144.99/$159.99 and £169.99/$189.99 respectively. For that extra cash, the creator bundle includes a MagSafe phone mount, a spotlight attachment and a USB-C to USB-C cable (as opposed to USB-A to C on the standard bundle).

By comparison, the Insta360 Flow Pro cost £139/$149 at launch, so it’s certainly not the worst uptick I’ve seen, although it definitely favours consumers living in the UK.

Just like before, there are two colour variations in the form of Stone Grey and Summit White.

Design

• New folding mechanism
• Quicker to asssemble than before
• The cold shoe mount has been removed

Even though it sticks to the same fairly monotone colour scheme of previous Flow gimbals, the Flow 2 Pro has undergone quite a few key changes in the design department, some of which and I love and one particular change that has left me reeling.

Let’s start with the good – this is by far the most confident the Flow range has ever felt from a design perspective. Compared to the Flow Pro where the handle would rotate when stored away, everything on the Flow 2 Pro is kept firmly in place.

The handle has been made longer and there’s now no need to add a grip case to it, thanks to a texturised backing that’s built-in from the jump. The tripod stems have been made slimmer (although I prefer the chunkier and seemingly sturdier alternatives from the Flow Pro), but more importantly, the way in which the device unfolds has changed.

Instead of rotating the gimbal’s neck counterclockwise in order to switch it on, the Flow 2 Pro asks you to extend forward from a hinge near the base. This motion feels far more fluid than what came before it, and there’s far less room for error here (on the Flow Pro I was constantly twisting the device clockwise to no avail).

There’s also a small mirror placed at the back of where the phone connects to the gimbal, but I think there’s a definite learning curve in making the most of it for selfies. Because the mirror itself is quite small and features a fish-eye distortion, it can be quite tricky to know exactly where your shots are being framed, but it is still a nice consideration.

What does make a big difference is the overhauled joystick and control ring. The joystick itself is much larger than before, offering up a great degree of control over the gimbal’s movements, while the greater surface area of the touch wheel makes inputs feel more defined, helped by haptic feedback to let you know when you’ve moved to a different mode. 

There’s now a bit more give in the zoom wheel too, although it’s a little too unwieldy to use with the thumb of the same hand that’s carrying the Flow 2 Pro. I recommend using the thumb and forefinger on your opposite hand to make more precise movements.

All of these tweaks are fantastic, and they would be even better if they hadn’t come at the apparent cost of Insta360 removing the cold shoe that has existed since the first Insta360 Flow. I’ve always relied on that cold shoe mount to house the receiver of the Hollyland Lark Max whenever I’ve been filming to-camera videos.

The absence of it now means that outdoor filming on the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro is far more cumbersome with a typical wireless mic set-up, to the point where it only really works if you have a plug and play receiver (like the one found on the Hollyland Lark M2) that’s small enough to just jut out of your phone without dangling around. I get that this won’t be an issue for the average person who just wants to film some stable footage on holiday, but for content creators it’s a major sticking point.

App and tracking

• Deep Track 4.0 is a game-changer
• You can now track multiple people
• The Insta360 app is more feature-packed than ever

While there’s nothing stopping Android users from pairing their phone with the Flow 2 Pro, it’s clear at several junctions that Insta360 has made the device chiefly with the iPhone in mind.

In addition to the optional MagSafe adapter I’ve been using, the Flow 2 Pro’s one-tap NFC pairing system only works with iPhones, and because the device makes use of Apple’s DockKit technology it is able to work across more than 200 camera apps including the native one found on all iPhones.

There’s no denying that there’s a preference of operating system here but it isn’t a dealbreaker as, more often than not, it’s preferable to use the Insta360 app when the Flow 2 Pro is connected due to the plethora of features that it holds, my favourite being in how it interacts with the all-new Deep Track 4.0 software.

This new level of tracking that the Flow 2 Pro is able to achieve honestly feels like some of kind of technological magic. I can remember picking up a DJI Osmo Mobile 3 a few years ago and being somewhat impressed with its tracking capabilities but recognising its limitations pretty quickly. The Flow 2 Pro, on the other hand, feels limitless.

The speed at which this gimbal has been able to follow me around is nothing short of incredible, and it shows an impressive amount of intelligence when it comes to relocating lost subjects. In one test, I left the frame completely. When I reintroduced my arm into the frame, the Flow 2 Pro recognised what it was looking at and followed said arm to reestablish tracking of my face.

This all works yet again with gesture controls in the Insta360 app (and are the core reason why you’ll want to film in the company’s native app to begin with). It’s a case of making a peace sign with your hand to take a picture/start recording, holding up your palm to activate face tracking, and an L-sign to activate multi-person tracking.

Being able to track more than one person at a time is a new feature for the Flow 2 Pro, and I can see it being quite handy for any group vlogs as the camera works to keep everyone in the frame where possible, but it will latch on to a primary subject if everyone else moves too far beyond the frame.

A simple tweak that I’d love to see in the app is for it to remember your settings from the last time you used it. So far, I’ve had to turn on gesture control and turn off Live Photos (which takes a burst of shots) every time I’ve opened the app, which just feels unecessary.

Beyond that however, the app does feel like an embarassment of riches where features are concerned. You’ve got classic modes like Pano Photo and Slow Motion, but there’s also Widescreen Mode for more cinematic content, plus an in-built teleprompter to help you remember your lines when shooting scripted content.

This is all before mentioning Insta360’s suite of extensive editing tools, which are incredibly handy to have on the go. At this point, the Insta360 app does feel like one of those shining examples of a software that’s gone from strength to strength and is now towering about the competition.

Stabilisation and performance

• Very smooth footage when walking and running
• 360-degree panning works flawlessly
• Up to 10-hour battery life

It would be a bit odd if, for all the positive things I’ve said about the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro so far, the device failed at the crucial hurdle of stabilisation – but thankfully this is not the case. With all the extra features that the Flow 2 Pro brings to the table, I’ve had to remind myself that the basics are still important for anyone looking to buy the device, and here the gimbal works brilliantly.

When walking down the street, particularly when filming in landscape mode, the Flow 2 Pro brings a wonderful first-person style quality to your video recordings, where there’s the type of gentle sway that you would naturally see when on the move. For vlogging, it’s exactly the type of look you want to achieve as it feels incredibly inviting to the viewer, letting them step into someone else’s shoes for a moment.

Even when rushing ahead at a jogging pace, the Flow 2 Pro can still minimise the impact of my arm’s movement to keep everything steady enough that it shouldn’t cause any discomfort to the viewer. That performance continues even when utilising the hidden extension rod within the Flow 2 Pro, giving you more height in your shots and a wider field of view when filming to-camera.

Just like the Flow Pro before it, the Flow 2 Pro has 360-degree movement at its axis which makes it well suited for shooting sport or animals, where the action moves at a fast pace and could easily jump out of a 180-degree frame. It’s also just good fun to shoot to-camera content where you’re moving around the gimbal, giving the viewer an almost VR-like perspective of the world around you.

It is worth noting though that there is a very slight bit of gradual movement when shooting to-camera style videos at a desk, as I’d notice a slight shift to the left over the course of filming a 20-minute video. This is, however, something that I’ve experienced on almost every gimbal I’ve ever tested, and it’s slight enough that it’s unlikely to be noticed by the viewer.

The device retains the same quoted 10-hour battery life as the Insta360 Flow Pro, but in my time testing it I’ve barely been able to make a dent in that, so you can rest assured that it can easily see you through a day’s worth of shooting. Just like before, the Flow 2 Pro can also be used to top-up your phone on the go via a wired connection.

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