GoPro Hero9 vs Insta360 One R vs DJI Osmo Action Camera Comparison Review

Today, we're going to do something unique. We're going to challenge three action cameras against each other to see which one gets the highest score. We're going to look at every category that you might think through when you're buying one of these cameras, and we're going to assign two points to the winner of that category, one point to the "you came in, you had to go," and no points to the camera that loses in that category to give you a final grand score that may help you think about which camera you might buy. We'll go through all the categories and all the specs, and you'll be able to know by the end of this video which camera you think is best suited for your needs.

I'm not going to color-change or color-grade any of the footage that comes out of these cameras, and I'm not going to edit the audio either, so you'll get to see exactly how it sounds and how it looks as it comes out of the camera that you would then have as footage that you might choose to edit.

Note: All prices mentioned here can change.

If you wander into an average Australian shop or an averaged price Aussie website, you pay $600 for the GoPro, you pay $550 for the Insta360, and you pay $500 for the DJI Osmo Action.

Then, you take it home, open up the box, and what do you get? With the GoPro Hero9 You get a funky little case where it keeps it all nice and safe. With the Insta360, you get a cage, which has feet on the bottom. You don't need a cage for the GoPro because it's got feet built-in. For the Osmo Action, nothing. You do get charging cables, of course, with all of them, but, that's it.

They all have a front screen. The Hero9 has a front screen and a back screen, and you can use both screens at the same time. The DJI Osmo Action has a front screen and a back screen, but you have to choose between the two. The Insta360 has a back screen that also becomes the front screen when you turn the mod around.

This part is really interesting. The GoPro takes 120 minutes to fully charge, and you can use it for 131 minutes. That means for every minute of charge, you get 1.09 minutes worth of use. The Insta360 takes 65 minutes to charge. You get 70 minutes use out of it, which means for every minute you charge, you get 1.07 minutes out of it. The Osmo Action takes 90 minutes to charge, and you get 63 minutes use out of it, so for every minute of charge, you get 0.7 minutes worth use out of it.

The Gopro Hero 9 shoots 4K on 60 FPS and 1080p at 240 FPS. The Insta360 shoots 4K at 60 FPS. It shoots 1080p at 200 FPS. The DJI Osmo Action shoots 4K at 60 FPS, and then it shoots 1080p at 240 FPS, except the GoPro shoots 5K as well at 30 FPS.

The Osmo Action has the biggest screen. The GoPro comes next in terms of screen size. The Insta360 has a tiny screen, but there's a marginal difference between the Osmo Action and the GoPro.

When I put my finger on it, I found the Osmo Action to be extremely sensitive, really effectively. With the GoPro, not so much. The Insta360 has got a long way to go. It's actually hard to swipe around and manoeuvre around the camera screen.

What about when you turn it on and you just go through the functions? The Osmo Action just seems intuitive. When you think functions should be somewhere they are. When you think, how do I change this option? You can. The Insta360 is fairly similar, not quite as good, but fairly similar. The GoPro, I just got confused. It took ages to work out how to change functionality. I accidentally changed from video to time lapse to photos. It isn't as intuitive as the others.

The GoPro is the heaviest of the lot. It comes in at 159 grams. Shortly after, the Osmo Action is 124 grams. Rounding it off at just 121 grams is the Insta360.

When you stack them all next to each other, how do they go? The GoPro is the biggest. The Insta360 comes in next, and the Osmo Action is the smallest.

All of these cameras do some of the same things. They all have a detachable face lens. You can just pull that off, so if it gets cracked, you can replace it. You can use filters on all of these cameras to get the right cinematic effect that you want to achieve. All of them can be used while charging, so just plug them in and they have varied opportunities to access the charging port. They all have app support, which does various things. The Insta360's app support is insane. You can do cool stuff with that. They all have manual control over exposure value, over shutter speed, over ISO, over white balance, and over your color profile. Also they have fixed aperture all around 2.8, and not all of them freeze. Only the GoPro freezes. How can a 9th generation camera freeze?

That was nail biting right down to the end, wasn't it? Seriously, as I was doing it, I had no idea which one was going to come out in front, what a narrow finish. The Osmo Action from DJI scoring 19 points, well done. The Insta360 4K mod coming back from losing completely with 20 points, just nudging out DJI, and our winner, our grand final winner is the GoPro Hero9, with no less than 23 points, even though it lost a few throughout. In concluding comments for you, the Osmo, was released 18 months ago. The Insta360 was released 11 months ago, and the Hero9 was released just 2 months ago, and so you see the development in technology. You would hope that the cameras would score like they have because of the advancement of technology.

So which one should you go for? Well, there'll be categories that we just looked at that are of no interest to you whatsoever, so you can discount them by readjusting the score, or you can just use your brain and you'll get a feel for now, which camera best suits you, your budget, and your needs. For me, the Osmo Action I've been using for a long, long time. I recently bought Insta360, but the reason I bought this is because it's primarily a 360-degree camera, so this is kind of a bit of a bonus on top. Before doing this, I wouldn't have bought the Insta360 for the 4K mod.

However, if you need a 360-degree camera, it's worth getting the Insta360 with the mod, right? It scored really well on a number of those things, so actually, it might be worth it after all. I'm more familiar with the Osmo Action, so make sure you account for that bias too. I don't think it affected it too much. In fact, it clearly didn't because the Osmo Action lost. Would I now upgrade to the Hero9? No, I think I'm going to wait for the Osmo Action 2. It comes out pretty soon, so I'm looking forward to that. I may upgrade, but I may just keep this until it's completely redundant. I don't use it for stills. I use it for a bunch of other cool stuff, which you would have seen if you've looked at my channel.

Speaking of my channel please subscribe, give me the thumbs up, and enable the notification bell. If you've got a question that you wish I'd have spent longer on the particular aspect in my video, I did I just didn't put in the video. Please ask any questions you like. If I got something wrong I'm really sorry, and please help us all by correcting that in the comments here. Thanks so much for watching. I hope this was a bit of fun, a little bit different but helpful to you as you think about what camera you might buy or what cameras can do. Thanks everybody. Have a great week. I'll see you on the next video.