The Insta360 One is a little 4K camera for 360 video

Having just spent a weekend with the One, I came away impressed with Insta360's new 4K VR camera. It's more than capable of letting you take great-looking 360 and VR compatible shots and comes with a few more tricks such as removing the selfie stick from your shot, or letting you record a video in bullet time by swinging the camera around you on a string. Really.

The Insta360 One sports two 24-megapixel cameras, and has an onboard gyroscope to help you keep things aligned. Compared with the Nano which I tried earlier this year, the One takes much better pictures. Details are obvious, noise is kept to the minimum and low-light shots, such as this one of my estate at night, look great.

While I really didn't see a need for 4K with the Nano, the One convinced me with its better looking shots that would really come in handy if I was ever in say, at the Gullfoss waterfall in Iceland.

The One is really easy to use. You can just whip it out of its protective casing (which also doubles as a stand if need be), turn the camera on and you can then hit the button at the side to snap a picture. Pressing the button twice will record video. If you want to take time-lapse videos, timed photos or even slow motion videos, you'll need to connect the One to the iPhone and change the setting through the Insta360 app.

To take bullet-time video, you'll need to screw the string attachment onto the One and then make sure the triple button press of the button is set to slow motion recording. Then it's a matter of simply swinging the camera around like a lasso. The software will then automatically adjust the video to give you a bullet time effect. Just be careful to not hit anyone while swinging the One around.

You can also pair a Bluetooth remote with the One, allowing you to mount the One on a selfie stick and remotely trigger it from below. The one thing I wasn't quite sold on was its battery life, it didn't seem to have enough juice to last through an hour of use, but my unit is not a full retail model, which may affect things.

If you're looking for a pocketable 360 VR camera that's simple to use with great image quality, the Insta360 One is probably the one for you. It will ship on September 5 on Insta360's online store here or online retailers such as Amazon and B&H for $300 and includes a string attachment and micro-SD card. International pricing isn't yet available, but its US price converts roughly to £230 for the UK and AU$380 for Australia.

Quick specs

• Dual 24-megapixel cameras
  
• 6,912x3,456-pixel resolution
  
• microSD card slot
  
• iPhone-only