The Insta360 X5 further refines what was already the best 360 degree camera, the X4, with larger image sensor, more powerful processors and welcome design tweaks.
Launched in April 2024, the X4 delivered 8K 360 degree video, improved battery life and design from the X3, for an unbeatable price.
Like your action camera series upgraded regularly? Insta360 shows how it’s done with the Insta360 X5.
GoPro took almost six years to bring us its second GoPro Max (and that was just a tweak of the original). Yet just a year on from the Insta360 X4, the new Insta360 X5 arguably introduces even more dramatic generational changes than the GoPro upgrade.
These include larger sensors, uprated water resistance, a new mount style and AI-assisted low-light video capture. As night shooting is the biggest weak spot of all action cameras, let alone 360-degree ones, this Insta360 X5 feature could be a big deal for many prospective buyers.
Is the Insta360 X5 really worth upgrading for current Insta360 X4 owners, though? And is shopping around for a deal on the older model still a sensible idea? Let’s compare the two generations, area-by-area, to get to the bottom of those questions and more.
1. Price and availability
- Insta360 X5 launched at $549.99 / £519.99 / AU$929.99
- Insta360 X4 costs $499.99 / £499.99 / AU$879.99, but is often available for less
The Insta360 X5 was announced in April 2025, exactly a year after the April 2024 launch of the Insta360 X4.
There was not a huge leap in cost between the generations, but there was an increase. The Insta360 X4 launched at $499.99 / £499.99 / AU$879.99, the X5 at $549.99 / £519.99 / AU$929.99.
While it’s a smaller jump than the $100 rise between the Insta350 X3 and X4, we can’t ignore that GoPro’s Max is “just” $349. That is a less dynamic and impressive camera, at least spec-wise, than the Insta360 X5. But it sure does pile on the pressure for Insta360 to deliver.
The good news is that if you shop around, the year-old X4 can be had for more like $425 / £425. Without that discount, the X5 is an easy recommendation, but with it, the choice is harder.
2. Design
- Insta360 X5: 49ft / 15m waterproofing, magnetic mount, fully replaceable lenses
- Insta360 X4: 33ft / 10m waterproofing, screw-in mount, screw-on lens guards
The Insta360 X5 does not represent a radical redesign of the blueprint that gave us the Insta360 X4. These are roughly stick-shaped cameras that suit life at the end of the selfie stick-style mount.
You can hold them almost like an old-school phone to operate, and they have a couple of interface buttons below the 2.5-inch touchscreen.
The differences in the weight and dimensions of the X5 and X4 are so fractional you be hard-pressed to notice them even while having both cameras in hand; 46 × 124.5 × 38.2mm are the Insta360 X5’s measurements, 46 x 123.6 x 37.6mm for the X4. And the X4 is just 3g heavier at 203g, according to the official specs. There’s really nothing in it.
Once impactful change: where you can use screw-on lens guards to help avoid scratching the outer lens glass of the Insta360 X4, the outer glass element itself is replaceable in the Insta360 X5. You can use lens guards in the new camera too, so it’s effectively another level of insurance for poor tech choices and general clumsiness.
And replacement lenses are not horribly expensive either, at $29.99 / £29.99 a pop (still more than double the cost of a single lens guard, though).
The mounting system on the bottom of the Insta360 X5 is new too. It adopts the popular magnetic mount style, secured with additional clips, rather than the more traditional screw mount of the Insta360 X4.
Water resistance improves as well, from 33ft / 10m to 49ft / 15m, although Insta360’s diving case is still recommended if you’ll take the Insta360 X5 any real distance under the surface.
3. Sensor and Image Quality
- Insta360 X5; twin 1/1.28-inch sensors. PureVideo introduced, triple processor chips
- Insta360 X4; smaller 1/2-inch sensors, dual processors
The Insta360 X5 has much larger camera sensors than the X4. Each side gets a, so far unspecified, 1/1.28-inch sensor, far larger than the 1/2-inch sensors used in the Insta360 X4.
Despite Insta360 using a larger still 1-inch sensor Insta360 One RS (no longer available), this shift in sensor size between X series models should still be enough to ensure significantly higher native light sensitivity and lower noise. And that’s despite a slight downshift in lens aperture, from f/1.9 to f/2.0 across these two generations.
As is so often the case these days, though, the actual results you’ll see will be as much guided by software as hardware and optics.
The Insta360 X5 introduces a PureVideo mode, new to this series. Insta360 first coined this term in 2024 with the Ace Pro 2. It refers to a mode that uses AI smarts to improve low-light image quality.
We’re promised dramatic improvements in noise and dynamic range, at up to 30 frames per second. And Insta360 suggests using it instead of the Active HDR mode when shooting at night. The Insta360 X5 brings this tech to 360-degree video, at up to 8K resolution.
Sensor resolution has not changed, though. The Insta360 X4 and X5 have a maximum 360-degree photo resolution of 72MP, telling us the 8K 360 video is actually simmered down from 11K’s worth of image data.
Insta360 is keen to highlight how these X5 improvements are only possible thanks to the camera’s Triple AI Chip processor array. But the 140% boost to power is actually the same number used last year surrounding the fanfare about the Insta360 X4 and its 5nm AI processor. With no tester benchmarks to analyse these claims, let’s just assume Insta360 likes the number 140.
4. Shooting Modes
- Insta360 X5: Active HDR now in 5.7K up to 60fps, new InstaFrame captures flat and 360 degree video simultaneously, no I-log color profile
- Insta360 X4: Active HDR now in 5.7K up to 30fps, I-log color profile
If you’re hoping for some huge jump in the ceiling in terms of the resolution or frame rate with the Insta360 X5, you may be disappointed.
The top mode is still 8K resolution, at 30 frames per second using the 360-degree view. Max frame rate jumps to 60fps at 5.7K, just like the previous generation.
At 4K resolution the peak frame rate jumps from 100fps in the Insta360 X4 to 120fps in the X5, but we wouldn’t count that as a top reason to upgrade.
4K at 60 frames per second is the top mode in either camera when shooting in “single camera” view, which is more like that of a standard action camera. And Active HDR is available in both cameras, although the top mode is 5.7K 30p in the older camera, up to 5.7K 60p in the Insta360 X5.
As much as anything else, these somewhat minor gains are indicative of quite how aggressive the Insta360 X4 was when it arrived in 2024.
There is a significant usability upgrade, though, in InstaFrame. This captures a “flat” video and a 360-degree one simultaneously, so you no longer need to choose between having a clip you can share easily, and one that provides more scope when you get to the edit.
The Insta360 X5 also gets the I-log mode that was in the X3 but not, curiously enough, in the X4. However, many found the older camera’s “flat” color mode made a reasonable substitute in practical terms.
5. Battery life
- Insta360 X5: 2,400mAh battery, 87 minutes for 8K, 185 minute record time in ‘Endurance’ mode, 35 minute charge time
- Insta360 X4: 2,290mAh battery, 75 minutes for 8K, 135 minutes for 5.7K just like the X5, 55 minute charge time
Insta360 has slightly increased the capacity of the X-series’s battery in the Insta360 X5. It has 2,400mAh instead os 2,290mAh in the last generation.
That’s just under a five per cent increase — nothing major. But the actual increase in runtimes is far greater than that in certain modes.
At 8K 30p you can expect the Insta360 X5 to run for 87 minutes, compared to 75 in the Insta360 X4. That’s a 17 per cent increase, according to Insta360’s lab-style testing.
However, the quoted time for shooting at 5.7K (30fps) is actually exactly the same between generations, a solid 135 minutes.
You may also see 185 minutes quoted for the new model while researching, taking it above that catchy three-hour mark. This is for the “endurance” mode, at 24fps, 5.7K resolution.
Charging speeds are far better in the newer generation too. Insta360 says you can reach 100% in 35 minutes, compared to 55 minutes in the Insta360 X4. That’s going to come in handy if you end up out in the field, waiting for a battery to fill up from a battery pack.
Early verdict
The Insta360 X5 proves annual upgrades don’t have to be piecemeal iterative affairs. While the camera looks a lot like the Insta360 X4 and doesn’t have any new higher resolutions to boast about, it does bring an array of upgrades that coalesce into an impressive whole.
It’s a tougher camera you can use with less care, if that’s how you roll. The Insta360 X5’s footage will hold up a better at night too, as long as you use the right mode.
And larger sensor size means visual noise should be at least a little less apparent in the Insta360 X5, when you move between brighter and less bright environments. It’s something we see all the time in action cameras when shooting in and out of tree cover, even on a bright day.
Is the Insta360 X5 a must-upgrade for X4 owners? We don’t think so, at least for most folks. There’s plenty of life left in the older model, which after all only came out in April 2024 and is now regularly discounted.
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