Insta360 X4 Air Review — 165g, and the 29MP Catch

Every camera on this site was bought at retail. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements, no free review units. Full policy

The Insta360 X4 Air is an 8K30 360 camera that weighs 165 g, survives 15 m of water with no case on, and lets you unscrew a scratched lens yourself. It costs $319.99 (checked 3 September 2026), a Labor Day promotional price against a $399.99 list. It is for anyone who puts a 360 camera on a helmet or a stick and has stopped enjoying the weight up there.

Here is the sentence Insta360's product page does not lead with: the X4 Air shoots 29MP 360 stills, where the Insta360 X4 above it shoots 72MP. If you buy a 360 camera mainly for photographs, that one row should decide this review for you, which is why the number is in the headline.

Almost everything else the word "Air" implies is wrong in the buyer's favour. The sensors are different and physically larger, the aperture is different, the depth rating is the one the Insta360 X5 carries, and the lenses come off. A buyer who reads "Air" as "lesser" has the sensor story backwards and the photo story exactly right. I have had it on a bike helmet, on a selfie stick above a crowd, and in a pool without a case.

The Specs That Decide It

Against the Insta360 X4 that costs $105 more, the X4 Air wins four of these six columns, ties one, and loses one badly enough to get its own callout further down. The losing column is here on purpose.

The three Insta360 prices are temporary: Insta360's store and B&H were running the same Labor Day promotion on the check date. The MAX2 figure is GoPro's MSRP, not the promotion B&H was running that day, because a promo price presented as a list price is the kind of error this site exists not to make.

First Impressions

The first thing you notice about the X4 Air is what you stop noticing. 165 g is the lightest weight of any 360 camera in either of our reference files: the Insta360 X4 is 203 g, the X5 is 200 g, the Insta360 X6 is 196 g, the older Insta360 X3 is 180 g, DJI's Osmo 360 is 183 g, and GoPro's MAX2 is 195 g on a retailer-sourced figure GoPro itself does not publish. Pick it up after any of those and there is a puzzled pause, as if a battery had been left out.

It has not. There is a 2010 mAh cell in there, behind a 2.09-inch LCD that is the smallest screen in the current X-series. The screen is the first compromise you meet: fine for changing modes and checking battery, not where I framed anything. On a 360 camera that matters less than on a conventional action camera, because framing happens in the app afterwards, but coming from the X4's 2.5-inch panel you will feel it.

The optics are the surprise. Two 1/1.8" sensors sit behind F1.95 lenses; the X4 uses two 1/2" sensors at F1.9. The X4 Air's sensors are the physically larger pair, and the aperture is fractionally narrower on paper by a margin no footage I shot could show. Build is a plain matte body with the familiar quick-release base and the lenses screwed in rather than fixed. It went into a jersey pocket. The X4 never did.

highlight The cheaper, lighter camera has the larger sensors. Hold onto that when the name tries to tell you otherwise.

Weight: 165 g, and It Is Not Close

Weight goes first because it is the criterion where the X4 Air's margin is largest, and because it is a published manufacturer figure rather than a judgement.

165 g. That is 38 g lighter than the X4, 35 g lighter than the X5, 30 g lighter than GoPro's MAX2 on the retailer-sourced figure, and 18 g lighter than DJI's Osmo 360. On a spec sheet those are small numbers. On a helmet they are not, because a 360 camera sits on a stalk above the shell, and every gram is at the end of a lever.

I rode the same loop with the X4 Air and the X4 on the same helmet mount on consecutive mornings. With the X4 there is a tug at the top of the head on every hard turn and a faint nod when you brake. With the X4 Air the tug is still there, but it is the kind you forget after the first junction rather than the kind you are still aware of at the end. That is a subjective account of a published 38 g difference, and I would not have believed it was worth writing down until I felt it.

On a selfie stick, holding any 360 camera at full extension above a crowd is an exercise in wrist endurance, and the lighter body means the stick comes down later. The one place weight does not help is on a light pole in wind, where a very light camera is a lively combination. That is physics, not a complaint.

Water and Lenses: Where a $319.99 Camera Beats a $424.99 One

These two rows go together because they are the two places where the X4 Air is rated above the X4 outright, not merely level with it.

The X4 Air is rated to 15 m with no case. The X4 is rated to 10 m. In the Invisible Dive Case the X4 Air goes to 60 m; the X4's case takes it to 50 m. Those are the X5's numbers, not the X4's. GoPro's MAX2 is rated to 5 m, a third of the X4 Air's bare rating, and that is the figure a buyer comparing 360 cameras for anything involving water should have in front of them.

I put it in a swimming pool with no case and swam a few lengths pushing it ahead of me. It came out working, with no fogging behind the lenses, and the footage was what 360 pool footage usually is: fun and slightly green. I am not going to quote a depth for a pool; the point of a manufacturer rating is that it is the manufacturer's.

The lenses are the second row. The X4 Air's lenses are user-replaceable. The X4's are not, and neither are the X3's. On a 360 camera this is not a nice-to-have. The lenses are hemispheres that stand proud of the body and are the first thing to touch the ground when the camera does. On a fixed-lens 360 camera a deep scratch means a repair or a new body. On the X4 Air it means a new lens.

I did a swap on the kitchen table. It is not fiddly: the old lens comes off, the new one goes on, and the camera does not need to be told anything. Insta360 does not publish a price for the replacement lens kit in either of our reference files, so I cannot tell you what a scratch costs. But the difference between "a new lens" and "a new camera" does not depend on that price.

Price Against Specification

The X4 Air was $319.99 at both store.insta360.com and B&H when we checked on 3 September 2026. That is a Labor Day promotional price, it is temporary, and the list price is $399.99. The same promotion had the X4 at $424.99 (list $499.99) and the X5 at $464.99 (list $549.99), so on the promotional figures the X4 Air is $105 below the X4 and $145 below the X5.

For $105 less than the X4, the X4 Air is lighter, rated deeper without a case, rated deeper in a case, carries larger sensors, and has lenses you can replace. That is five published rows in the cheaper camera's favour, and it should be stated as flatly as that.

Where the X4 wins is on two published figures, and they are not small. The X4 shoots 72MP 360 stills to the X4 Air's 29MP, and it has a 2.5-inch screen to the X4 Air's 2.09-inch. If either of those is why you are buying a 360 camera, the Insta360 X4 is the better purchase and the $105 is well spent.

Where the X5 wins is on what Insta360 chose to publish for it and not for the X4 Air. The Insta360 X5 has larger 1/1.28" sensors, a published 13.5 stops of dynamic range where the X4 Air has no figure, 93 min at 8K30 against 88 min, and the same 72MP stills as the X4. It also has replaceable lenses and the same 15 m rating, so on those rows the X4 Air catches it rather than beats it. For $145 more, the X5 is the more complete camera. It is also 35 g heavier.

Outside the brand, GoPro's MAX2 lists at $499.99. B&H had it at $299.99 on the same check date, but that was a promotion, not the MSRP. At either price it is rated to 5 m, and GoPro publishes neither its weight nor its screen brightness nor its dynamic range nor its rated runtime. DJI's Osmo 360 was $519.99 at B&H, but DJI does not officially sell it in the USA and publishes no USD price for it.

highlight Five published rows in the cheaper camera's favour, two in the dearer one's. Decide which two you care about.

Video and Battery

Video goes fourth, not first, because it is the criterion where the X4 Air is level with its siblings rather than ahead of them.

The 360 ceiling is 8K30, the same as the X4 and the X5 and below the X6's 8K50. It is also below the DJI Osmo 360's 8K50, and that is a genuinely better ceiling on a published figure, so it is conceded here rather than at the bottom of the page. Stabilisation is FlowState Stabilization with 360 Horizon Lock, the same pairing as the rest of the range, and on the helmet and the stick the horizon stayed where I left it.

The single-lens ceiling is where our two reference files disagree, and we are publishing both.

One of those is wrong, or one describes a mode the other does not count as a ceiling. We have not resolved it and we are not going to guess. If you are buying for high-frame-rate single-lens work, treat 4K60 as the figure you can rely on and 4K100 as unconfirmed until Insta360's spec table settles it.

Battery is a 2010 mAh cell rated at 88 min at 8K30, longer than the X4's 75 min from its 2290 mAh cell and shorter than the X5's 93 min from 2400 mAh. DJI's Osmo 360 is rated at 100 min at 8K30. The X5 also publishes a 208 min Endurance-mode figure; the X4 Air publishes no equivalent, and no fast-charge time either. In use it got warm on a long continuous 8K30 take in the sun and did not stop.

Audio gets a line because it is where a lighter camera often loses out. The X4 Air pairs directly with the Insta360 Mic Air, whose transmitter is small enough not to undo the point of the body.

Full Specifications

"Not published" means Insta360 does not publish the figure for that model. "Not verified for this page" means we have not confirmed it for that column and will not fill it from memory.

Insta360 publishes both dynamic range and peak brightness for its flagships and neither for this camera or the X4. On the X6 those rows read 14.5 stops and 1200 nits. Here they read nothing, and a buyer is entitled to notice it.

Pros and cons

The Honest Limitation

Frequently asked questions