If the unique Ace Professional was Insta360’s approach of getting its bearings within the conventional motion digicam panorama, its new Ace Professional 2 is its approach of placing the remainder of the motion world on discover. Armed with a deep repertoire of additives and upgrades from its predecessor, together with every thing from a brand new Sort 1/1/3 8K-capable sensor to a pair of high-powered AI picture processing chips, the Ace Professional 2 appears poised to compete straight with flagship fashions from DJI and GoPro — the latter being the trade’s lengthy standing gold normal. In regards to the Insta360 Ace Professional 2 Value: $399.99 Video Decision: As much as 8K HDR at 30/25/24 fps Photograph Decision: As much as 50MP (8192×6144) Microphones: 3 microphones Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz) Climate Resistance: Waterproof as much as 39 ft with out protecting housing Working temperatures: -4ºF to 113ºF (-20ºC to 45ºC) Battery life: as much as 180 minutes Dimensions (W x H x D): 2.8 x 2.1 x1.5 inches Weight: 177.2 grams If you happen to’re curious how the Ace Professional 2 stacks up straight towards the GoPro and DJI counterparts, Chris Niccolls has a video breakdown price watching. I additionally cowl the competitors in a devoted part beneath. Insta360 Ace Professional 2: Design The Ace Professional 2 follows the identical boxy, compact design mannequin that GoPro championed and most different motion cameras adopted, together with this digicam’s older sibling, the Ace Professional. With that being mentioned, the Ace Professional 2 did get a brand new wardrobe for its debut.
Before everything, the Ace Professional 2 has a bigger, 2.5-inch flip touchscreen than its predecessor. Granted, it’s not a lot bigger (The Ace Professional’s display is 2.4 inches, per Insta360), however any extra floor space may be thought-about a very good factor for the Professional 2’s intuitive, easy-to-use touchscreen. The controls haven’t modified model-to-model (swipe down for normal settings, up for mode settings, center to vary modes and entry presets, and many others.), nevertheless it’s nonetheless essential to acknowledge a strong display once you see one. Different new design options for the Ace Professional 2 embrace a wind guard for lowering wind noise and boosting audio readability and a removable mic cap for underwater exploration, in addition to a brand new, detachable lens guard that Insta360 says is high-strength and scratch-resistant. Plus, the Ace Professional 2 arrives with a brand new, 1800mAh battery that Insta360 claims will cost to 80 p.c in simply 18 minutes whereas additionally having the ability to reverse cost different gadgets like your smartphone. I didn’t put a stopwatch to it, however I can affirm that Professional 2 recharged remarkably quick between recording classes. Maybe the largest design improve, although, is what’s contained in the digicam. Insta360 says the Ace Professional 2 is the primary motion digicam with a devoted Professional Imaging Chip for noise reductions and picture processing and a second AI Chip for extra picture processing and smoother efficiency. The 2 chips symbolize a one hundred pc enchancment in computing energy in comparison with the Ace Professional, and though I didn’t have the older mannequin available to check side-by-side, the element that these chips helped deliver out in my motion pictures was nothing in need of spectacular. Extra on that later. Insta360 Ace Professional 2: Options Proper off the bat, the Ace Professional 2 can now plunge deeper into the physique of water of your selection. Insta360 says the digicam is waterproof right down to 39 ft, a good improve over the Ace Professional’s (and, coincidentally, the GoPro Hero 13’s) score of 33 ft. That pairs properly with the Ace Professional 2’s new Underwater mode, which is meant to optimize stabilization and proper distortion in settings the place gentle refraction reduces the digicam’s subject of view, in line with Insta360. It was a bit too chilly in my neck of the woods to check out Underwater mode (and I didn’t have a mount for the Ace Professional 2’s different new mode, Dashcam), however I did get loads of expertise with different modes and taking pictures presets for the Ace Professional 2. I failed miserably with my first try utilizing the Ace Professional 2’s Starlapse mode (person error, the digicam tried its finest), however had nice experiences with the digicam’s Vlog and Bike presets, which as you could anticipate, tailor the Ace Professional 2’s settings to create preferrred circumstances for every exercise, respectively. FreeFrame Video is a helpful mode that mainly shoots in 9:16 and 16:9 facet ratios concurrently to make it straightforward to adapt video for each longform and brief type social media (YouTube vs. TikTok, per se). And PureVideo, which Insta360 says is supposed to spice up high quality in low lighting settings, was notably useful for driving residence at nightfall after a day on the mountain bike trails.
The Ace Professional 2 has different neat perks like Gesture and Voice Management, which do have some utility however might not in the end be used fairly often by your on a regular basis motion digicam proprietor. You can too overlay stats from apps like Garmin, Apple, COROS and extra in your movies, and the digicam’s new Timecode characteristic permits for multi-cam synchronization when you occur to be on the helm of a manufacturing that includes a number of Ace Professional 2s. The characteristic that proved essentially the most useful to me was the Ace Professional 2’s AI Spotlight Assistant. It’s a setting it’s a must to toggle on to activate, nevertheless it lets you document a prolonged clip, spotlight a number of particular segments from that clip in-camera, and let AI generate these clips into a brand new video that may standalone or exchange the unique recording altogether. Principally, it’s an enhancing shortcut that allows you to shortly pull out the fascinating stuff out of your recording. I discovered myself utilizing it usually to hurry up the enhancing course of once I wished to get movies posted on-line shortly. Insta360 Ace Professional 2: Efficiency All of the specs and all the options are good however on the finish of the day, it’s what the Ace Professional 2 can do in the true world that makes it really formidable. My predominant use case for motion cameras is mountain biking, so I naturally swung a leg over the bike as a lot as I may in a restricted assessment interval to see how the stats, the {hardware}, and the expertise truly manifest themselves. In terms of picture and video high quality, the Ace Professional 2 is difficult to beat. Taking pictures in 4Kp60 with Lively HDR for mountain biking movies, I discovered myself recording footage filled with spectacular element, even in less-than-stellar circumstances for recording like overcast days and color-bleak landscapes. The identical may be mentioned for taking pictures photographs: with a most picture decision of 50-megapixels, it did very properly in preferrred circumstances, however impressed me most within the absence of lighting for issues like sundown pictures. A fast be aware: Insta360 will market the Ace Professional 2 closely as an 8K motion digicam, which is factually appropriate. The Ace Professional 2 is able to 8Kp30 video decision. Nevertheless, I barely shot in 8K for 3 causes: first, it ate my file area; second, I didn’t have shows able to seeing an enormous, monumental distinction between 8Kp30 and 4Kp60; and third, Insta360’s native cellular app, whereas usually very user-friendly and a fantastic companion device for the model’s cameras themselves, was unable to edit 8K video. If I couldn’t edit what I shot, I wouldn’t really feel nice about having the ability to put up it.
Most integral to an motion digicam, after all, is stabilization. Insta360’s Flowstate Stabilization expertise is robotically enabled within the digicam from inventory, although Insta360 recommends adjusting the stabilization setting to “Excessive” when it’s time to get a bit extra excessive. That gave the impression to be the setting that moved the needle, as a result of the Ace Professional 2’s stabilization was excellent when set to excessive. When utilizing PureVideo mode, which units the stabilization to “Commonplace” by default, I seemingly misplaced most of that superior stabilization expertise as I rolled over rock beds and down a reasonably technical path. Moreover, Insta360’s Horizon Lock expertise was solely accessible to toggle on once I was taking pictures in FreeFrame mode. It labored properly, nevertheless it was fascinating to see that characteristic restricted to that particular mode. Elsewhere beneath the “efficiency” umbrella, the Ace Professional 2’s battery life appeared to behave as marketed, and it did surprisingly properly to not overheat in heat circumstances. We recorded an hour-long podcast episode on the digicam on my patio throughout a sunny day, and by the tip of it, the Ace Professional 2 was lukewarm, however nowhere close to a regarding temperature. It additionally recorded nice audio (for an motion digicam), partially due to Insta360’s new superior audio algorithms with three audio modes: wind discount, voice enhancement, and stereo. The digicam can be suitable with a plethora of exterior mics and bluetooth headsets when you’re after really high-quality audio to pair together with your movies. Insta360 Ace Professional 2 is a Worthy Competitor in a Crowded House The Insta360 Ace Professional 2 is every thing an motion digicam in 2024 needs to be. It’s bursting with sufficient options and expertise to nearly utterly automate the expertise of recording nice footage when you’re a newbie and simply need to level and shoot. Beneath the floor, although, it has all of the {hardware} wanted for a seasoned videographer to get wonderful photographs and pictures out of it. It’s acquired a few quirks to it, as most cameras do. The idea of 8K isn’t as a lot of a recreation changer (but) as some advertising and marketing ways might lead you to imagine, and the digicam’s stabilization capabilities can take a success relying on the settings you have got in place. However when you’re like me, a weekend warrior with a need to study, Insta360’s Ace Professional 2 is the perfect, all-encompassing motion digicam that may allow you to develop whereas handing you the instruments to nonetheless have a blast alongside the way in which. Are There Options? It’s no secret that Insta360 needs to satisfy GoPro head-on with the Ace Professional 2. The model’s teaser video for the brand new digicam options it crashing right into a front room like an AI-powered comet and obliterating an previous motion digicam that’s simply out of focus sufficient to present Insta360 the good thing about the doubt, but additionally completely seems to be like a GoPro. Subliminal messaging apart, the Ace Professional 2’s spec sheet is geared to attempt to eclipse the GoPro Hero 13 (in addition to the DJI Motion 5 Professional) in each conceivable approach. It takes the cake in video decision (8K30fps in comparison with 5.3K60fps and 4K120fps, respectively), picture decision (50MP vs. 27MP and 40MP), subject of view (157 levels towards 156 and 155 levels), and even waterproofing (39 ft in comparison with GoPro’s 33, although the DJI Motion 5 Professional is rated as much as 65 ft). On paper, it’s onerous to argue which is the higher digicam.
Regrettably, I didn’t have a Hero 13 accessible to check towards the Ace Professional 2. I did, nevertheless, have the subsequent smartest thing within the Hero 12. I took each cameras on the identical path, with optimized motion settings for every machine, and sat them side-by-side to match the outcomes. Whereas each cameras showcase nice footage that replicate simply how far motion cameras and their expertise have come through the years, to me the Ace Professional 2 stands out as a transparent winner each for its element and superior stabilization. Which will change when pitted towards the Hero 13, however the Professional 2 undoubtedly appears to outshine the Hero 12 in motion settings. For a extra direct spec-for-spec comparability of those three cameras towards each other, be sure to take a look at Chris Niccoll’s video situated on the prime of this assessment. Ought to You Purchase It? Sure. The Insta360 is among the most stacked motion cameras accessible at this time.
