GoPro Max 2 360 review: It’s finally here

It can be said that this is personal taste. Certainly if you’re looking to stop your eyeballs mid-scrolling with saturated, eye-catching colors, the Insta360 X5 is your friend. However, I personally like the colors coming from the GoPro better, even when shooting in 8-bit colour. It might be worth watching some videos of both to see which look you prefer before you invest. One advantage of the GoPro is that if you want to get into post-production coloring in apps like DaVinci Resolve, the 10-bit color option gives you a lot more leeway.

I also found that in bright light, when shooting the kind of things I’d normally use an action camera for (bike riding, hiking, etc.), the Max 2’s shots were sharper than the same scenes shot with the X5. The difference isn’t huge, but especially in scenes with a lot of foliage, the Max 2 comes out on top with sharper edges and better contrast.

Like most 360-degree cameras, the Max 2 offers a single-lens mode, which is useful for times when you know you don’t want a second lens (for example, if it’s strapped to your chest). In single-lens mode, the Max 2 essentially becomes a 4K Hero 13. All the same lens modes are available, and most of the video options are too. The big difference is that you get up to 4K instead of the Hero 13 Black’s 5.2K. But single lens mode is useful because it saves you from having to reframe those shots.

While the Max 2 wins in image quality (slightly) and color science (including 10-bit support), it unfortunately doesn’t win in sound. The Max 2 manages to group 6 microphones, which it then uses intelligently (for example, when there is wind coming from the left, it has to tone down that microphone and rely more on the microphone on the right side). This all sounds very nice, but unfortunately in my testing, the sound was subpar no matter what I did. It was noticeably quiet and flat compared to the X5, shooting side-by-side in the same conditions.