Insta360 X4 Review — Still Worth $424.99 in 2026?

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The Insta360 X4 is a 360 camera that shoots 8K30, sits two generations behind Insta360's flagship, and costs $424.99 (checked 3 September 2026) on a temporary Labor Day promotion against a $499.99 list price. It shoots 4K60 single-lens and 72MP stills, is waterproof to 10 m without a case, and its two lenses cannot be replaced. It is for the buyer who wants 8K30 360 video for the least money and is realistic about how they treat their gear.

I spent two weeks with it: a long weekend on a bike with the camera on an invisible selfie stick, three afternoons around a lake, a day of family footage, and a session in hard sun. Nothing broke. Several things about the spec sheet nagged at me, and this review is mostly about those.

The short version: one avoidable problem and one honest rival in its own family. The problem is the fixed lenses. The rival is the Insta360 X5, which costs $40 more on the same promotion and wins five rows of the comparison table. Most people reading this page should spend the $40.

At a glance

The six rows that decide this purchase. Lens replaceability is in here because it is the row the X4 loses to both of its neighbours, and a table that left it out would be hiding the thing a buyer most needs to know.

The X4 holds on the two resolution rows and falls behind on the rest. The X5 is rated deeper, weighs less and has lenses that come off; the Osmo 360 is faster, lighter and takes a bigger still. Only the MAX2 sits clearly below it, on depth. Two cells say "not verified for this page" rather than "not published": neither of our reference documents records a lens-replaceability statement for the MAX2 or the Osmo 360.

First impressions: 203 g, and lenses that stay put

At 203 g the Insta360 X4 is the heaviest camera in the X-series. The Insta360 X6 is 196 g, the X5 is 200 g, the Insta360 X3 is 180 g and the Insta360 X4 Air is 165 g. In the hand the gaps are small. On a selfie stick held out for an hour they are not, and the X4 was the one I noticed first.

The body is a tall bar with a 2.5-inch LCD on one face and a lens dome protruding from each side; a 2290 mAh battery slides into the base. The screen is big enough to frame with and the base takes every X-series accessory I own.

The lenses are the first impression that lasts. On a 360 camera both protrude to see round the body, so both are the first thing to touch whatever the camera touches. On the X4 they are fixed. The X5, the X6 and the cheaper X4 Air all have lenses a user can swap at home; the X4 and the older X3 do not. Insta360 sells lens guards for the X4. I fitted them on day one and never took them off, because a guard is the only protection a fixed lens gets.

Stabilisation is FlowState Stabilization with 360 Horizon Lock, the combination the whole X-series runs. On the bike the horizon stayed level through corners and the invisible-stick shot held its geometry when the road did not. No complaint, and no figure to argue about, because nobody publishes one. Operating temperature is published at −20 °C to 40 °C.

8K30 and 72MP: where the X4 still holds

This is the criterion the X4 wins, so it goes first.

The X4 shoots 8K30 in 360, 4K60 from a single lens, and 72MP stills. The X3 before it shoots 5.7K30, and that gap is not the marginal one it would be on a flat camera. A 360 clip is not delivered whole: you reframe a flat window out of the sphere in the edit, and every pixel you did not capture is one you cannot crop into later. 8K30 is a full tier of reframing headroom, and the single best reason to buy an X4 rather than the cheaper X3.

The 72MP figure is the one to watch. It matches the X5, so on stills the X4 gives nothing away to the camera that costs $40 more. And it is 2.5× the 29MP of the X4 Air, which matters, because the X4 Air is $105 cheaper at $319.99 (checked 3 September 2026, Labor Day promotion, list $399.99), lighter at 165 g, rated to 15 m, and has user-replaceable lenses. It reads as a straight upgrade right up until the photo row. If you shoot 360 stills — and a 72MP sphere you can reframe later is a forgiving way to photograph a place — the X4 Air's 29MP is a real step down and the X4 is the better buy.

highlight The X4 Air is lighter, cheaper, rated deeper and has replaceable lenses. It is not a straight upgrade, and 29MP against 72MP is why.

Against the wider field, 8K30 is the same headline figure as the X5, the X4 Air and GoPro's MAX2. Two cameras here shoot faster: the DJI Osmo 360 at 8K50, and the X6 at 8K50 — and the X6 also publishes 14.5 stops of dynamic range, which the X4 does not publish at all. If frame rate decides it, read the Insta360 X6 review.

In use, the 8K30 footage from two 1/2-inch sensors at F1.9 was clean in daylight and visibly softer by dusk than the X5 footage shot beside it. I cannot put a number on that gap, because Insta360 publishes no dynamic-range figure for the X4.

Price: $424.99, and the $40 question

The Insta360 X4 costs $424.99 (checked 3 September 2026) at store.insta360.com and at B&H, which matched Insta360 to the cent — a Labor Day promotional price against a $499.99 list price, and temporary. B&H matching Insta360 exactly on every X-series model says this is Insta360-set promotional pricing, not a retailer clearing stock, and it will end. After the promotion, expect the list price.

The Insta360 X5 costs $464.99 (checked 3 September 2026) on the same Labor Day promotion, list $549.99. It is $40 more, and that $40 is the whole argument of this page.

Here is what the $40 buys, row by row, on published figures:

The X5 wins depth, sensor size, dynamic-range disclosure, long-mode runtime and lens replaceability — five rows, plus weight — for $40. The X4 wins nothing on this table; it ties on 8K30, 4K60 and 72MP. Where the X5 wins this row and the next, it wins on the things that decide whether the camera survives, and on the sensor that decides how footage looks after sunset. Where the X4 ties, it ties on the figures that look good in a shop listing.

A review is expected to recommend the camera it reviews, and here that would be the wrong advice. Most people with $424.99 to spend on a 360 camera should spend $464.99 instead and read the Insta360 X5 review. The X4 is the right buy when the $40 genuinely is not there, or when a bundle price opens a gap the base prices do not. Both happen. Neither is most people.

Two more anchors. GoPro's MAX2 carries an MSRP of $499.99 — exactly the X4's list price. B&H had the MAX2 at $299.99 on the check date, a 40%-off promotion, and I will not anchor anything to that. DJI's Osmo 360 was $519.99 at B&H on 3 September 2026, but DJI publishes no official USD price for it and does not officially sell it in the USA — a retailer's price for a camera not launched in the market you are buying in.

Water: 10 m bare, 50 m cased

The Insta360 X4 is waterproof to 10 m without a case, and rated to 50 m with the Invisible Dive Case. Both numbers need a footnote against the rest of the range, because the X4 is the lower figure on both.

Bare, 10 m is the same rating as the X3 and the DJI Osmo 360. It is twice GoPro's MAX2, whose 5 m is half the X4's bare rating — for a camera people buy for surf, snorkelling and boats, that is a real and checkable advantage. But the X5 and the X4 Air are both rated to 15 m. Ten metres is a snorkelling depth. Fifteen covers a bad duck-dive, a dropped camera on a shallow reef, or a wave that holds you down longer than planned.

Cased, the figure is 50 m, and the X4 is again the lower one: the Invisible Dive Cases for the X5, the X6 and the X4 Air are all rated to 60 m. On a recreational certification you will reach neither limit. But if you are buying camera and case together, the X5's case carries the deeper rating on the same $40 decision.

In the lake — shallow, warm, murky by mid-afternoon — the X4 was fine at every depth I could reach by swimming, and the stitch held together underwater with the case fitted. That is the point of the "invisible" name: the case is shaped so the stitch line falls where its edges are. Without a case the stitch shows underwater, which is true of every 360 camera.

Dry the camera before opening the battery door — and you will open it often, for reasons the next section explains.

Battery: 75 minutes at 8K30, and where the Osmo 360 wins

Battery is the criterion the X4 loses, so it goes last, and it is where this review's concession lives.

The Insta360 X4 has a 2290 mAh battery rated for 75 min at 8K30 and 135 min at 5.7K30. The X5's 2400 mAh cell is rated for 93 min at 8K30 and 208 min at 5.7K24 in Endurance Mode; the X6's 2600 mAh for 140 min at 8K30.

Where the Osmo 360 wins: DJI publishes 100 min at 8K30, which beats the X4's 75 by 25 minutes, and it does not stop there. On published figures the Osmo 360 beats the X4 on four criteria: 8K50 against 8K30, a 1/1.1" sensor against two 1/2" sensors, 100 minutes at 8K30 against 75, and a 2.0" screen with a published 800-nit peak brightness against a row Insta360 leaves blank. It does that at 183 g, 20 g lighter than the X4, for $519.99 at B&H on 3 September 2026. The Osmo 360 is genuinely better on each of them.

Two things belong beside that, and neither is a rebuttal. First, DJI does not officially sell the Osmo 360 in the USA and publishes no USD price for it; the $519.99 is a retailer's price for a camera DJI has not launched in this market. That is a fact about buying the camera. It does not make 8K50 any slower or 100 minutes any shorter. Second, DJI's 13.5-stop dynamic-range claim appears in a press release and not in DJI's own spec table: the X4 publishes no figure, and DJI publishes one only where it cannot be checked. GoPro publishes no rated runtime for the MAX2 at all, and no brightness or dynamic-range figure either.

In use, 75 minutes at 8K30 is what it says. A long weekend on the bike meant a spare battery in a jersey pocket and a swap at every stop — a habit the X5's longer rating would let you drop. At 5.7K30 the X4 lasts appreciably longer, and for anything finished on a phone that is where I would leave it.

Fast-charge time is not published for the X4. Neither is a storage ceiling for the microSD slot. Both appear in the table below as blank rows.

Full specifications

Every row traces to Insta360's published specification or to the September 2026 verified reference. Where Insta360 publishes no figure, the cell says so.

Six rows on the X4's own side are blank: dynamic range, peak screen brightness, focal length, storage ceiling, fast-charge time and launch date. Three are published and unfavourable: fixed lenses, 203 g, 10 m. The lens row stays; dropping it would make the table read better and make it dishonest.

Pros and cons

The honest limitation

Frequently asked questions