First Impressions of the GO 3
In this post, I’ll be talking about my first impressions of the Go 3 from Insta360 and my experiences I’ve had thus far. This is actually my first time I using a product from Insta360 so all the experiences I’ve had from buying the product from them to getting used to the interface on the Go 3 has been new. I found out about this camera from the web which I’m sure is the same for a lot of others as you might’ve seen just how many other people are talking about this camera. And there have been so many positive reviews of this camera. And don’t get me wrong. This camera definitely has some things going for it and it’s not terrible by any means. But I just want to say it’s far from perfect and it definitely has its problems, which I haven’t really seen many people talk about. A quick disclaimer before I get right into it: I bought the Go 3 mainly as a camera to record povs of my photowalks whenever I’m out in the city taking pictures. I’ll also be using it to grab quick clips for B-Roll for videos and social media, but mostly, it’ll be used as a pov camera for my photowalks. I’m not taking this with me to run a marathon or go surfing so if you’re interested in this camera for that, this might not be the most useful for you. However, if you’re interested in this camera for slower paced action like walking or you’re a photographer looking to add a pov camera to your kit then maybe I’ll be able to help you with your decision. I’ll be splitting it into 3 sections: Likes, Indifferent, Dislikes, starting with what I like about the Go 3.
Likes
Starting with what I like about the Go 3 so far, the main thing that drew me to the camera is that it’s very small and portable. The one problem I had with my Go Pro 10, which I eventually lost it (twice), was that despite it being pretty small, whenever I would put it on the chest mount to go for a photowalk, it was just too noticeable. I’d have to put the chest mount on over my shirt then have the go pro coming out from the chest mount. Having that entire system on me while carrying my camera and lens around was just too much for me personally. You could make the point of wearing something over your shirt such as a jacket or so, to cover up the go pro mount which I actually did do a couple of times, but when it’s summer and it’s 90+ degrees outside, I’d rather not have to deal with that. With the Go 3, I can just wear the magnetic pendant which goes under whatever shirt you have on, attach the Go 3 to it and I’m done. It’s a very simple and quick process. One little complaint about the magnetic pendant though is for some reason, the Go 3 doesn’t want to go in the middle. I can only get it to go on the upper top area or the lower bottom area. It’s not a big deal, but it just feels like it’s more susceptible to getting knocked off as opposed to if it were in the middle. But what do I know?
Speaking of accessories, this actually brings me to the next like about the Go 3: the ability to attach the camera to a variety of things without the need for additional attachments. With the Go Pro system, it uses a screw in system which gets annoying to screw and unscrew if you need to take off your Go Pro to swap batteries or switch accessories. But that’s not all. With the Go Pro, you also need to buy 3-4 different accessories like the chest mount, head strap mount, magnetic swivel clip, etc, which adds more to the cost. With the Go 3, I appreciate the magnet pendent and the clip they give you along with the Go 3 itself. Along with the attachments, the ability to attach the Go 3 to just about any magnetic surface around you can help you easily get clips without having to worry about carrying anything extra, which is a huge plus for me. You just snap it on somewhere and you can get the footage you want, more specifically for me, B-Roll footage of myself walking around the city or a clip of me getting pictures.
The next thing I like about the Go 3 is actually the compatibility with the Insta360 app. I found it pretty easy to connect the app to the camera and get it working. From there, I can view all the footage I’ve gotten on the Go 3, quickily edit some clips, and even view the camera from my phone. Though honestly, it’s probably not something I’d really use a lot, but I enjoy how simple it was to use and get through. One thing I really don’t like though is you have to connect to the Go 3 every single time you use the app, which takes a bit of time. If they made the connecting time quicker or somehow made it where you connect the Go 3 to the app only once and be done with it, then it’d be less annoying. But again, I don’t really plan on using it much. I just wanted to mention it as its something some of ya’ll might want to know.
Indifferent
Moving on to the next section about the things I’m indifferent about with this camera. The first feature is the internal memory. At first, I actually liked this because this meant I didn’t have to worry about buying or forgetting to bring a micro sd card. The memory is all internal so that’s one hurdle I don’t ever have to think about. But with that feature comes a problem. Because the memory is internal, if I ever forget to make space between shoots, I’ll eventually run out of space and I won’t be able to simply switch micro sds since it’s all internal. So that’s something I’ll have to work around, but hopefully it won’t be too much of a problem.
The next feature I’m indifferent about is the lack of 4K in the Go 3, which may surprise some people. There are probably those saying: But 4K is better quality than 2.7K and 1440P. Why wouldn’t this bother you? And well, yeah you’re totally right haha. It’s as simple as that. But as I mentioned before, I’m mainly using this camera as a pov cam for my photowalks so I don’t really need the 4K as much as the 4K would be nice to have, especially for the B Roll clips or any projects where I might find myself using this camera in the future. So at the moment, it doesn’t bother me too much. But when the time comes when I’d want to use this for future projects, the better quality that comes with 4K footage will definitely be missed. It also doesn’t help that slow mo at 120 fps can only be shot in 1080p and freeframe video mode can only be shot at 1440. But a slight positive about not shooting in 4K? The battery on the Go 3 probably lasts longer shooting in 2.7K as opposed to if it were able to shoot in 4K. Which actually is a good way to lead into the first of the negatives for the Go 3 which is:
The Battery Life. Before I go more in depth about why I dislike the battery life for the Go 3, let me explain a bit about how it works for the Go 3. With this camera, theres the actual camera and the action pod. If you put the Go 3 into the action pod, the Go 3 will start charging so you can think of the action pod also as a charging bank. When the action pod itself runs out of juice, you can charge that via the standard way you usually charge things. And because the camera has an internal battery, you have to charge it when it dies, no ifs or buts. But getting back to why I dislike the battery life of the Go 3. The action pod itself is fine, but when you take the Go 3 out of the action pod, it lasts for 45 minutes max for one recording. When I go on photowalks and I want to record the walk, I’ll have footage for the first 45 mins, but once the battery dies, that’ll basically leave me with nothing for 30 minutes until the battery can charge back to 100%. Then it’s rinse and repeat until the action pod itself dies which hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’d think, you could recharge the Go 3 3 times or so to 100% before the action pod runs out. A workaround this would be to record at times when I think are important during the photowalk, but the problem with that is now I have to worry about something else during my photowalk. And when I’m out taking photos, I want to be focused on my photography, not about the camera on my chest or anything like that.
The next problem I have with the Go 3 is the start up time. It takes camera WAYYYYY too long to start up, which becomes annoying real fast. When turning on the camera from off to on, the screen takes a while to come on from the moment you touch the power button. This can be frustrating for when I want to get B-Roll clips quickly and I’m moving from area to area or if I ever want to use this camera for some video projects. For photowalks, it’s actually not too much of a problem as I just need to press record and attach it to my chest. However, if I’m in the middle of a photowalk and I want to put it back on quickly after the camera is done charging, then it can become pretty annoying. But even it wasn’t an issue during photowalks, for how long it takes, I just had to put this in the dislike section. It’s really just something that frustrates the hell outta me.
The last point I want to make is the uncertainty I have about this camera when talking about it’s reliability. Now I can’t confirm this yet, and since it’s happened only once, I’ll give it a pass for now. But I still have to put it in the dislike section as it’s pretty crazy, even if it’s only happened once. On my first test photowalk I had with this camera, I came across this issue when recording. During this first photowalk, I was recording multiple clips as opposed to just one straight clip like I do now, so I don’t know if that was the reason why this clip became all jittery and weird, but because of this, I’ve been a bit worried about this camera. So far, I haven’t had this problem happen in any of my other footage, but just having experienced this is making me worried about future footage so I hope it’s just a one time thing and I’m just being paranoid about this issue. If you have the Go 3 and you know why this happen, please let me know.
Now that I’ve gone over some positives and negatives of the Go 3, I want to quickly highlight the cost of the Go 3. The Go 3 comes in three different prices depending on the internal memory you choose: $380 for 32 gb, $400 for 64 gb, and $430 for 128 gb. Along with the internal memory options, you can choose the different type of kits as well that include accessories you might want for specific activities like swimming or biking. Comparing that to the Go Pro 11, you’d be looking at $400 for the camera alone, $450 with the accessories bundle, which don’t include any other accessories you might want along with it. Now they both are quite expensive, surpassing the $400 point. So now looking back, after experiencing both the Go Pro and the Go 3, do I still think the Go 3 is worth buying? Especially over something like the Go Pro? Well, to skip all the bs, I’d say yes, for me, it’s worth buying still, especially for how I plan on using the camera, which is as a pov camera for my photowalks. But if I were to give a more complicated answer, in my opinion, I think even though both cameras are marketed as action cameras, I personally think they have different usages. If you want a camera that is able to shoot in better quality such as 4K or have better low light performance, the Go Pro 11 definitely is the way to go. However, if you want to go with a highly versatile camera capable of getting footage efficiently and discreetly, then the Go 3 is the choice. All in all, even though I bought the Go 3 as a do it all pov camera, I might actually end up getting the Go Pro 11 still, especially if I’m able to find one on sale, either used online, or when it eventually goes sale later this year when the Go Pro 12 releases. That way, depending on what type of footage I want, I can bring either the Go 3 or the Go Pro.
Well, that’s all for me this week. Keep in mind, while these are the main points I wanted to talk about, these aren’t the only positives or negatives this camera has, they’re just the ones that I’ve noticed that affect me the most. There are definitely other points you might want to look into such as the action pod itself not being waterproof incase you wanted to use it during a day at the beach or the kinds of attachments you can get for the Go 3. But if you want to know more about those, you can probably find a video from someone else on youtube that has way more experience about that than me or a post on google. If you do decide to buy the Go 3, one tip I have to tell is to avoid buying from the Insta360 store themselves. They took forever to ship me my Go 3 and I’m actually still waiting for my screen protector for the Go 3. So if you want your camera soon, I’d suggest buying it from another store.