Performance
The Insta360 Nano contains a very small lithium-ion battery that gave me around 1 hour of usage. Out and about, I needed to switch off the Insta360 Nano completely to preserve its battery. Weirdly, for a gadget meant to be used with an iPhone, the Insta360 Nano uses a micro-USB port to charge, which means you will have to carry an extra cable around with you.
At the bottom of the Insta360 Nano, apart from the micro-USB charging port, there is a micro SD card slot which is used to store your 360 photos and videos when you want to use the Insta360 Nano as a standalone device. More about this later.
When you first attach the Insta360 Nano to your iPhone, you’ll be prompted to download the accompanying app from the App Store. When you first start the app, you’re asked to activate the Insta360 Nano, which takes a millisecond. Then, because the camera is mounted at the bottom of your iPhone, the app is ran upside down which takes a little getting used to.
The app is as basic, no-frills affair. You’re able to get a live view of the sensors and you can pan around by swiping, which lets you view what’s being captured from both cameras. You can swap between still image and video modes with a toggle above the on-screen shutter button.
Recording video on the Insta360 Nano is a little fiddly. You record by pressing the shutter button and you have to keep your finger pressed to continue recording. Let’s hope an app update can get this sort out. There aren’t many settings you can change while taking images or recording video. There’s a timer mode, some exposure compensation and a few filters you can apply. The Insta360 app can also be used to view your images and recorded footage. You can toggle between different viewing modes such as Globe, Panorama and Fisheye views for when not using the app in a VR headset. You can also choose to look around by swiping, or by using your iPhone’s gyroscopes.
You can use the Insta360 Nano camera by itself. After powering it on, a single press of the rear button captures a still image, a double-press starts video, and you can configure a triple-press to start a timed capture.
One of the features of the Insta360 Nano is live streaming to Facebook or Youtube…..I can imagine the fun we are going to have in our next FunkyKit live video podcast!!
