Insta360 One R 1-inch
A real action camera powerhouse.
Your first reaction to the Insta360 One R 1-inch Edition may be the same as ours: wow, that’s a big lens.
However, it’s the lens protector that makes it appear huge. This can be unscrewed, revealing the lens glass underneath, which isn’t much bigger than the Insta360 One R’s 360-degree mod.
Why so big? The protective glass needs to extend beyond the lens itself thanks to its wide angle field of view, and the gap between lens glass and lens protector. And Insta360 probably wants it to look very serious and professional, too.
Insta360’s stabilisation is called FlowState and is the company’s equivalent of GoPro’s HyperSmooth.
It’s great, as we found in the Insta360 One R 4K and Insta360 Go. Use the near-native ultra-wide field of view and you’ll still see some motion judder, but the more crop you allow, the smoother it gets. The default ‘wide’ view is already very smooth even when dealing with the hard motion of running.
The benefits of the Insta360 One R 1-inch Edition’s large sensor come in handy here, too. Use the narrowest field of view in most action cameras and the image will often look quite soft. This is no surprise, as it’s just digital zoom with a bit of geometric correction applied. But the 1-inch sensor handles the crop far better than most, even if there’s actually no more appreciable detail than a crop of the native ultra-wide view, when you dig deep and analyse the frame.
How about low light? No amount of GoPro processing charm can surmount the difference in sensor size between this camera and the GoPro Hero 9 Black. The Insta360 One R 1-inch Edition’s low light video is far better than the
GoPro’s. It’s brighter, cleaner and more detailed.
The Insta360 One R has the two additional video modes you’d expect from a higher-end action camera: Timelapse and Timeshift. And the latter is more fun to use.
Timeshift increases motion to 16x, for a ‘fast forward’-style effect you could use for a quick tour of sights when on holiday.
Superior image quality is the sole reason to buy the Insta360 One R 1-inch Edition over cheaper alternatives, like those you can find in our guide to the best cheap action cameras.
Almost all half-decent action cameras have 1/2.3-inch sensors, including all GoPro Hero Black models. These sensors are around a quarter of the size of a one-inch chip. Four times the lightgathering space gives a camera better dynamic range and lowlight ability, while introducing the practical issues of a larger sensor chip and larger lens elements.
As you can see, Insta360 has nailed the size issue, if you’re not put off by the huge protective cover.
The Insta360 One R 1-inch edition is not as fun to use as a GoPro. But in the right situations, it can produce beautiful 4K (or 5K) video and excellent stills. Snap up the 360-degree and 4K mods and you have an action camera powerhouse on your hands. Andrew Williams