Insta360 X4 Air Wants to be a Featherweight Force in 360-Degree Filmmaking

Insta360 has just released the X4 Air, a camera that weighs in at a mere 165 grams but carries the heft of 8K 360-degree video, kind of like a feather in a fight. This device slots itself neatly into the X Series as the lightest one yet – made for people who live for the thrill of grabbing a shot without being weighed down by an extra few grams worth of kit.

The X4 Air measures in at 114 by 46 by 37 millimeters, which is roughly the size of a packet of gum alongside your phone and a load of keys in your pocket. Its body comes in either Graphite Black or Arctic White, complete with a matte finish that sort of just shrugs off fingerprints even when you are in a rush. Inside, there’s two 1.8-inch sensors, doing their thing to capture 8K video at 30 frames per second, which means it basically has double the pixel area of the original X4.

Lighting is always a bit of a nasty trick to pull off in 360 footage, but the X4 Air does a pretty good job of handling it all. There’s a bit of tech in there called Adaptive Tone which looks at input from each lens on its own, all at once basically makes the bright bits not too bright and the dark bits not too dark, so no more over exposed highlights or muddy areas in the shadows. And then there’s Active HDR now running at full 8K resolution which basically recovers all the details from the footage, whether its a really bright day or some fading light of dusk.


A nice feature is that Insta360 reinforced the X4 Air without making it thicker. The lenses are rather simple to swap out and replace if you get a branch to the face, a feature inherited from the larger X5 model’s design. They’ve also added a unique optical coating that makes them twice as drop-resistant as the X4’s glass. So if you throw it in the water up to 15 meters deep, or deeper with an extra housing, it will be OK – a little water and it will be as if nothing has happened. There’s also a wind barrier to keep out any gusts on a bike ride, keeping the audio clear as you zoom past. And then there’s FlowState to sort out any shakes, whether its on a run or a ski descent – keeps everything looking silky smooth. And a horizon level lock to keep things level even when the camera is upside down. Of course you can just mount it on handlebars for a bike view, or sort of have an invisible selfie stick for a floating view – so the result is just seamless videos


Filming often means splitting your attention, but the X4 Air lets you focus on the task at hand. Start or stop recording by twisting the selfie stick – no more fiddling with buttons mid-shot. Want a photo? Just wave your palm at the camera, or bark out a voice command to grab some video – it is more than happy to oblige. These gestures work from a distance, which is perfect if you’re using a tripod to capture a landscape from across a field, or if you’re doing a group hike and everyone’s in shot. The battery life is also outstanding, lasting a whole day of mixed shooting, and for an additional $40, you can get the Starter Bundle, which includes an extra battery pack, a lens cap, and that 114 cm stick for $479.99 – or you can add it all separately. Either way, you get a full year of cloud storage, 200 gigabytes to be exact, so you can put all of your stuff on the cloud and not worry about losing anything if your backpack gets thrown around.


Now the raw 360 clips can be a bit of a handful, but the good news is that the app is pretty good at helping you sift through them and pulling out the good bits. It uses AI to find the highlights, throw in some fades, and even match up the beat with a track from your own music library. And the best part is that you can export a flat 4K video at 60 frames per second if you just want to post something to social media in a hurry, or keep hold of the full 360 clip for later when you’ve got a bit more time to fiddle around. The InstaFrame mode even lets you capture both versions at once, so you can have a regular clip to post straight away and the panoramic version sitting safely in the background.


Of course, it’s not just about having a great camera – it’s also about being able to add a bit of extra context to your footage. So with the X4 Air you can sync up your Garmin watch or an Apple device and have all your route data and paces popping up on your footage – which is awesome if you’re a runner or a cyclist, for example. I mean, just imagine a fisherman holding up a catch against a crashing sea background, with all the stats about the fish below – or a runner climbing to the top of a hill with their elevation graph ticking up in time. These little touches really do bring abstract adventures to life in a way that’s as informative as it is fun.

The X4 Air is available now from the Insta360 store, Amazon, or from a selection of other shops, and it’s priced at $399.99 – and if you’re in the US or Canada, don’t worry – it’s coming to a shop near you pretty soon. Parents can use it to capture some nice beach day memories with a tripod snap, athletes can use it to log their descents with a handlebar mount, and who knows, maybe you’ll even use it to capture some street scenes on your travels – after all, with the X4 Air you’ve got 360 degrees of freedom to play with.