360 cameras

Dual one-inch sensors and a selectable aperture — f/2.1, f/3.5 or f/5.6 — are things no other 360 camera here has, and they are the reason this 2021 camera still sells for over a thousand dollars. It is a stills instrument: 23 MP spherical RAW files out of sensors with about a quarter more area per lens than an Insta360 X6's, which is what professional virtual-tour shooters buy it for, and the selectable aperture is how they control depth of field and diffraction in an interior. Everything else about it is dated and deliberately so. Video caps at 4K30, storage is 51 GB fixed with no card slot, there is no screen beyond a small status OLED, and there is no waterproofing. As an action camera it makes no sense; as the highest-image-quality one-shot 360 stills camera on sale, it is still unmatched.

DJI's first 360 camera arrived with the two square 1:1 sensors from the Action 6 programme, which is the most interesting thing about it: a square sensor wastes less of the lens's circular image than a 4:3 one, so more of the light the fisheye collects ends up in the sphere. The result is 8K at 50 fps — a frame rate only the Insta360 X6 matches among the 360 cameras here — 170 Mbps, 10-bit across every format, D-Log M, 120 MP panoramas, and a single-lens mode that runs 4K120 with a 155° field of view. It also carries 105 GB of usable internal storage, which — like the 128 GB in Kandao's QooCam 3 Ultra — removes the write-speed argument that sinks so many 360 shoots. Against the Insta360 X6 it gives away half the bare waterproof depth, and DJI's reframing app is younger than Insta360's.

Two things lift this above the rest of Insta360's line. It shoots 8K at 50 fps rather than 30, which is what makes reframed slow motion possible instead of theoretical — only DJI's Osmo 360 matches that here — and it records 10-bit, with I-Log and in-camera Dolby Vision. The 2600 mAh Xtreme battery is rated at 140 minutes of 8K30, more than double what the GoPro MAX2 claims, and 20 m of bare waterproofing is four times MAX2's. A note on the sensors: Insta360 markets these as one-inch, and the spec sheet says 1/1.1-inch, which on the standard optical-format table works out around 92 mm² per lens rather than a true one-inch's 116. That is less than DJI's Osmo 360 (96 mm²) or Ricoh's THETA Z1 (116), but well above the X5's 72, which is why the low-light gap to the X5 is as visible as it is.

Replaceable lenses arrived here first, and they changed the economics of owning a 360 camera. The fisheye glass on any spherical camera sticks out past the body and gets scratched — it is the category's defining failure mode — and on the X5 a scratched lens is a twenty-minute swap with a part you can keep in a bag. Around that, dual 1/1.28-inch sensors with roughly 2.4× the area of the X4's drive 8K30 supersampled down from an 11K capture, and a triple-chip stack runs PureVideo for low light. Fifteen metres of bare waterproofing, 2400 mAh, 135 minutes at 5.7K30. Against the newer X6 it gives up 8K50, 10-bit and 5 m of depth; against everything else, it is still the 360 camera most people should buy.

An odd and rather appealing camera: dual 1/1.55-inch sensors — 65 % more area per lens than the Insta360 X3 it competes with on price — behind the same F/1.6 glass as the Ultra, wrapped in a squat body that looks nothing like an X-series stick. Video caps at 5.7K30, which reframes to roughly 1.3K of usable 16:9, so the resolution ceiling is real. Where it earns its keep is stills: 62 MP spherical photos out of fast lenses and decent-sized sensors make it a credible virtual-tour camera for under half what a Ricoh THETA X costs. Fifty-eight minutes of recording and no internal storage are the practical limits, and the 1.9-inch screen is small enough to be fiddly.

Kandao is the small manufacturer in this category and it competes the only way a small manufacturer can: by shipping specs the big three charge more for. F/1.6 lenses — the fastest on any 360 camera here, shared only with the QooCam 3 — over dual 1/1.7-inch sensors, 10-bit HLG and a K-Log profile, 96 MP spherical stills, 150 Mbps, 128 GB of internal storage and built-in GPS, all under the price of an Insta360 X6. The costs are physical and logistical. At 336 g it is by a wide margin the heaviest camera here, nearly double an X6, and at 10 m bare it is the shallowest of the big-sensor 360 cameras. Fifty minutes of 8K 10-bit recording is short. And the software ecosystem around it — reframing, mobile editing, firmware cadence — is thinner than Insta360's, which is the part of the purchase a spec sheet cannot show you.

Lightest 8K 360 camera Insta360 has built, at 165 g — 35 g under the X5 and 31 g under the X6 — and that number is the whole pitch. On a helmet or the end of a selfie stick, thirty grams is the difference between a rig that stays put and one that wobbles. It keeps the things that matter most from the X5: replaceable lenses, 15 m of bare waterproofing, magnetic mounting. The sensors step down to 1/1.8-inch, roughly half the X5's area, and in 360 mode 4K tops out at 50 fps against the X5's 120. Against the X4 it has bigger sensors, replaceable lenses and 15 m rather than 10 m of bare waterproofing for less money; the X4 keeps 72 MP stills to the Air's 29, 4K at 100 fps in 360 mode, a larger battery and a higher bitrate.

Six years after the first MAX, GoPro finally shipped a successor, and the twist-off lens covers are the headline that matters. Every 360 camera lives or dies on scratched glass — the lenses bulge out past the body by design and there is no guarding them properly — and the MAX2 joins the Insta360 X5 in making a scratched lens a field swap rather than a service ticket. Around that sits true 8K spherical at 30 fps with 10-bit colour and GP-Log for grading, a 200 Mbps Maximum Bitrate mode added in GoPro's June 2026 firmware (300 Mbps with the experimental GoPro Labs firmware), built-in GPS and a six-microphone array. The two compromises are real: 5 m of bare waterproofing, the same as the original MAX and a quarter of the Insta360 X6's, and 66 minutes at 8K30 is less than half what the X6 claims.

Two hundred dollars for a 360 camera with 5.7K spherical capture, 72 MP photos, invisible-selfie-stick reframing and full horizon lock — roughly a third of what an Insta360 X6 costs and well under an X3. The specs it matches are the ones that are cheap to match; the one it does not is the one that matters most outdoors. This camera is weather-resistant, not waterproof, with no depth rating at all and no dive case offered, which rules out the water shooting that half of 360 buying is about. Sixty minutes of recording is short, the lenses are fixed and exposed, and the reframing app is early. As a very cheap way to find out whether you actually like shooting 360, it is defensible; as a camera to keep, less so.

Four years old and still on sale, because the entry price into spherical capture has not really moved below it. 5.7K30 is the ceiling — this is the generation before the X-series went 8K — and reframed to a normal 16:9 shot that leaves roughly 1.3K of usable width at a typical field of view, which is the honest number the marketing never quotes. What it does well is exactly what it did in 2022: throw it on a selfie stick, shoot everything, decide where to point later, and let FlowState make the result watchable. The 2.29-inch screen was the first usable one on a 360 camera, and the invisible selfie stick trick still reads as magic to anyone who has not seen it.

First of the X-series to shoot 8K, and the model that made spherical capture mainstream on bike handlebars and ski poles. The 200 Mbps ceiling is the highest of any X-series camera, the X6 included — Insta360 spent the bitrate on holding detail through the stitch. What the X4 does not have is the thing the X5 introduced: its lenses are fixed, and a scratched fisheye is a service job. The sensors are 1/2-inch, less than half the X5's area, which is exactly where the two cameras separate once the light drops. Bought as a daylight camera at its current price, it is a lot of resolution for the money; bought expecting the X5's night performance, it will disappoint.

Ricoh has been making 360 cameras longer than anyone else here and aims them somewhere else entirely: real-estate tours, insurance surveys and construction documentation, not helmets. The THETA X reflects that — 60 MP spherical stills with the best stitch quality in the category, built-in GPS to tag where each shot was taken, a swappable DB-110 battery so a surveyor can work all day, and a 2.25-inch touchscreen for checking frames on site. It is also not an action camera in any meaningful sense. There is no waterproof rating, nothing mounts to it but a tripod thread, it is rated only to 0 °C, and 5.7K30 video is a secondary feature rather than the point. If you want one camera for both a ski trip and a property listing, this is the wrong half of that pair.

A 2019 camera that GoPro quietly refreshed in 2025 with an Enduro battery and a 1/4-20 mount, and which survives because of one thing it still does well: it also works as a normal action camera. Point it forward, pick a digital lens, and the front sensor alone shoots 1440p or 1080p with Max HyperSmooth — historically the most aggressive stabilisation GoPro has ever shipped, because the second lens gives it a bigger picture to steal from. The spherical side is dated: 5.6K30, 8-bit, 78 Mbps, and lenses that cannot be replaced when they scratch. Treat it as a cheap dual-purpose camera with a very good stabilised single-lens mode, not as a current 360 camera — and at GoPro's own prices the newer MAX2 now costs less, so it only makes sense well below list.