Insta360 X6 Review: One Camera, Six Hours, No Regrets

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I carry a 360 camera on every serious hike I do, and I bought the last couple I owned with my own money. So when Insta360 sent me their new X6 360 camera, I already knew what I was looking at. The size alone of this new version stopped me.

I took it to New Zealand, walked all day, and barely touched it. Here is the honest version of how it went, the good bits and the one thing that would drive me mad.

Full disclosure. Insta360 sponsored the video that goes with this review and sent me the X6, plus the wireless mics I record with. What is also worth saying though, ist that I bought my last two 360 cameras, the X4 and the X5, as well as my Ace Pro 2 action cam, with my own money over the last few years. I had made the switch to this brand long before they ever reached out so it’s great to work with a brand that I already use and love.

First, a bit of background, because it explains why I said yes to this. I have been taking a video camera or cameras hiking for decades, right back to the early 2000s where I’d be burning trip DVDs for my family and the mates who could not come. I have always been the one who turns up with a camera and puts something together so everyone else can remember the trip.

These days that means a minimum of two cameras on the big trips. A little action cam in my hip belt pocket, a 360 up on a pole, plus a DSLR and my phone. Not to mention the ones I give my mates to carry and film too 🫢.

I have been through a few action camera brands over the years, but since the early 2020s, the Insta360 brand is the one I keep coming back to. They just work. They are durable, and I honestly cannot see myself switching. The real reason I love the 360 type of camera is the drone thing. Most places I hike, drones are not allowed, so a 360 camera up on a long pole is the closest I get to that floating, aerial look, with the pole wiped clean out of the shot.

A lot of my filming is simple. I stop, get whoever I am with as they walk towards me, then turn and catch them walking away, and I put the camera up on the pole for the overhead stuff and the odd time lapse. Sometimes, I’ll try a few placement shots where the camera is off in the distance on a tripod tracking me as I walk.

With a normal camera that is two or three separate looks. The X6 sees in every direction at once, so I get them coming and going in the one shot, and the aerial angle is on the same pole. Insta360 call it shoot now, frame later. There is a lens on each side, they capture everything around you, and you choose the actual shot later in the app. They have also put their biggest sensors yet in this one with Dual Custom  Sony 1/1.1” Square Sensors behind each lens, so it pulls in more light than any 360 camera they have made before.

It does more than 360 too. One tap flips it to InstaFrame 2.0, which locks onto you and tracks you around, smooth as a gimbal without carrying a gimbal, and puts out normal flat video ready to send. I ignored this feature at first, but after New Zealand I started playing with it a lot more. It tracks your face, so you can set the camera on the ground and get a proper tracking shot with no one behind it. Another tap and it is a normal wide single-lens action camera. That one matters, because if this is going to replace my action cam, it has to cover that job too.

And the audio. These little wireless mics pair straight to the camera over Bluetooth, no receiver box like my mirrorless needs. I had never taken a proper mic hiking in my life, and everything you hear in the video comes through them. So that is the whole kit. One camera, one stick, two little mics.

The walk was a track called the Hogs Back in New Zealand, out for about six hours. Here is the honest bit. My phone stayed in my pocket and my action cam stayed in the hip belt, and they barely came out. The action cam got one video the whole day. I kept reaching for the X6 instead, because the remote makes it a one-handed job from the end of the pole. On, off, record, photos, even checking the framing, all without touching the camera itself.

Part of that is the size, and it is a bigger difference than I expected. The X4 and X5 were long units with nowhere easy to stash them, so you end up holding the thing the whole walk. This one folds in on itself, shorter and a bit thicker, and it disappears into a pants pocket or the side of the pack, then comes out one-handed without breaking stride.

A couple of numbers, because I know you will ask. Six hours of filming on and off and I got home with about 43 percent battery left, so the spare never came out of the pack. And one small save that mattered more than it should have: my memory cards went missing somewhere between home and New Zealand, but the camera has 47 gigabytes of internal storage built in and I was filming before I had even worked out why. I wish every camera did that.

Be honest, how much of your trip footage ever gets watched again? The filming happens, the editing never does, and it all just sits there. I have got several hiking films still in the editing seat myself. So the editing side was the half I really wanted to test.

Part of it I already knew. In the app there is a quick edit trick where you pick the clips and it pulls a little video together on its own, choosing the angles out of that 360 sphere itself. I have been using it after walks to send a couple of minutes of the day to my wife and kids, and that alone has changed what makes it home from my trips.

But the headline claim is bigger. Plug the camera in to charge at night, touch nothing, and while it charges it goes through the whole day's footage, picks the moments it thinks matter, and cuts a finished video on its own. Next day your phone pings and the video is waiting. That is exactly what I did after the Hogs Back. Camera on charge, phone on the bedside table, and I did not peek. The result is in the video, and I did not touch a second of the edit, so make of it what you will.

There had to be a warning, because there always is. It is the remote. The thing that makes this whole hands-off setup work sits in the handle of the stick with a magnet, and that is it. No leash, no clip. I guess they figure the magnet is enough. And I know myself, I reckon I could lose this thing without even trying. Ten days into a Tassie trip with the remote sitting in the mud somewhere behind me, not realising until camp that night. So if you get one, decide where the remote lives and be religious about it. That is the only real catch I have found in two weeks.

Everything else has gone the other way. The camera weighs 196 grams with the battery in, which is insanely light for what it does. It barely registers in the hand and vanishes into a pocket. The whole kit as I carry it, camera, folding stick with remote, and lens cover, is about 419 grams. If you are counting grams there is a simpler stick that gets it down around 320grams. And the lenses are seriously tough, which is what you want out in the scrub, but if you do manage to wreck one they screw off and replace. For someone who has smashed and lost more cameras than I want to admit, that is exactly how outdoor gear should be built.

People will ask where this leaves my Ace Pro 2, because I love that little action cam. Honestly, I can see the X6 replacing it one day, just based on the footage I am getting and how similar it looks. But the Ace Pro 2 keeps earning its spot, and I love it for the nighttime time lapses in particular. Right now it would be very hard to leave either camera at home. That is where I have landed. Not one or the other yet, but the X6 is the one I keep reaching for first.

If you get home from great walks with three photos and a shaky video of your boots, this fixes your actual problem, because pressing record once is the whole job. And if your footage piles up unwatched because the editing never happens, an edit that actually exists beats the perfect one you never get around to.

It has not done a big multi-day in the wild country yet. That test is coming, and you will be seeing this camera's footage in my trip videos either way, so if it falls in a heap down the track, you will hear about it.

You can grab the Insta360 X6 and the Insta360 Mic Pro direct, and the rest of the gear I take on real trips is on my TrailKit page, with links to where to grab each piece.

Mowser

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