Shenzhen-based Insta360 has made a name for itself in recent years with its easy-to-use, highly portable 360 cameras – so much so that Apple stores around the world carry the company’s devices. They offer quite a wide variety of products from professional VR cameras, like Insta360 Titan, to consumer products, like the Insta360 ONE X.
The Chinese firm is now venturing into action-camera territory with its latest product, an ultra-portable stabilized action cam that may just be the world’s smallest. Here’s how it shapes up.

The $199.99 GO is truly tiny — it weighs less than an ounce and measures less than two inches tall and an inch wide.
“That looks like a set of Apple Airpods”. This might be your first reaction when you meet the Inta360 Go. The actual camera part is a little stick, smaller than the average USB pen drive. It clips magnetically into a charging dock, which is a dead ringer for the charger of a pair of true wireless earphones.

It’s tiny, and that’s ideal for the use case that Insta360 has in mind for this device — wearing it or mounting it virtually anywhere for capturing quick clips. The GO’s all about quick action grabs, with a 30-second cap on clip recording, which you trigger by pressing the lone control button on the device (a second press stops the clip unless you let it run the entire 30 seconds).

The camera’s main feature is the inclusion of Insta360’s 6-axis FlowState stabilization technology that rivals similar stabilization tech found in the most recent action cameras from GoPro and DJI. But the Insta360 GO isn’t meant to compete with those cameras. It’s meant to capture moments—short clips—not entire vlogging sessions or crazy runs down a mountain.

The GO works by capturing oversampled 1080p video clips—up to 30 seconds in length—every time you press the single button located at the bottom of the camera. You can also capture smooth hyper-lapse and timelapse footage for up to 30 minutes at 6x speed, or 100fps slow motion (at 1600×900 resolution) that’s automatically processed and output at 30fps.

GO also features a magnetic body, which is designed to work in tandem with a variety of accessories, including backs for securing them unobtrusively to clothing, an underwater housing (the camera itself is IPX4 rated, which means essentially it’s protected from splashes but not meant to be submerged) and mounts for sticking to things like surfboards or vehicles.

Shooting modes include a standard 25 fps as mentioned, as well as a 30 fps time-lapse, which can record up to eight hours (which will output a 9-second video) and a hyper-lapse mode that can shoot for up to 30 minutes to generate a five-minute video. It can capture photos, too, exporting square images at 2560 x 2560 resolution, or a number of landscape options reading down from there.

In addition to simplifying the capture, the Insta360 GO also hopes to make editing and sharing much easier with its FlashCut auto-editing feature. This software tool uses “AI” according to the company, in order to find the best clips (you can even sort by category, i.e. “food”) you capture throughout the day and then stitch them together in a final edit. You also can fully tweak the edits it provides if you’d rather be a more involved creator.

Technical Specs

• Lens aperture: f/2.1
• Video duration: Standard, Interval shooting, Slow motion: 15 seconds or 30 seconds, Hyperlapse: record up to 30 minutes to produce up to a 5-minute video, Timelapse: adjustable interval, record up to 8 hours to produce up to a 9-second video
• Video Resolution: Standard 2720×2720@25fps (captured) – 1080p@25fps (exported via app), Interval Shooting 2720×2720@25fps (captured) – 1080p@25fps (exported via app), Timelapse 3040×3040@30fps (captured) – 1080p@30fps (exported via app), Hyperlapse 2720×2720@30fps (captured) – 1080p@30fps (exported via app), Slow motion 1600×900@100fps (captured) – 1600×900@30fps (exported via app)
• Photo Resolution: 3040×3040 (Captured), 1:1 exported at 2560 x 2560,, 16:9 exported at 2560×1440, 9:16 exported at 1440×2560, 4:3 exported at 2560×1920
• Video format: insv (captured) /mp4 (exported via app), photo format: insp (captured) /jpg (exported via app)
• Video bitrate: 40Mbps (captured), 30Mbps (exported via app)
• Water-resistance rating: IPX4
• Stabilization: FlowState (built-in 6-axis gyroscopic stabilization)
• Compatible devices – iOS: iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone 8/8 Plus, iPhone 7/7 Plus, iPhone 6s/6s Plus (TBC), iPad Pro, iPad (2018)
• Compatible devices – Android (available on launch): Minimum configuration requirements: OTG support, Qualcomm 835/Kirin 970/Exynos 8895 or above, Android 7.1.1 or above (64-bit operating system), 3GB RAM or above
• Connectivity: Bluetooth BLE4.0, USB for Android device/PC/Mac, Lightning for iPhone/iPad
• Onboard storage: 8 GB
• Battery – Insta360 GO: charges in the Charge case, charging time – approximately 20 minutes, run time – roughly 200 clips (averaging ~20 seconds per clip)
• Battery – Charge case: charging time – approximately 1 hour, fully charged Charge case can provide about 2.5 charges for the camera
• Use temperature: 0℃~50℃; Storage temperature: -10℃~45℃
• Color: White
• Weight: 18.3g
• Size: 49.4 x 21.4 x 14.85 mm
• What’s in the box: Insta360 GO, Charger case, Easy clip, Magnet pendant, Pivot stand, Sticky base, Angle wedge, Micro-USB to USB charging cable, Micro-USB to USB Type-C cable for Android

The Insta360 Go has a clear appeal: its ultra-portability makes it very easy to shoot videos throughout the day, capturing moments that may otherwise not be worth pulling out a camera for.
It comes standard with a range of accessories for easy charging and mounting, including the Charge case, Magnet pendant, Pivot stand, Easy clip, and Sticky base. The whole set with the camera is priced at $199.99. Furthermore, any Insta360 GO camera purchased via Insta360.com can be laser-engraved to give it a personal touch.