Review: Insta360 Go 3 Action Camera

The latest iteration of Insta360's tiny Go camera has been redesigned to resemble a GoPro-style action camera. Thanks to an excellent magnetic system, you get both a minuscule camera just like the Go 2, and a base-station-type attachment that offers a touchscreen and more traditional action camera handling.

It's still an incredibly fun, tiny camera that will fit just about anywhere, but the base station gives it even more versatility and much longer battery life. The result is a go-anywhere, shoot-everything camera. It's not necessarily the best in every situation, but it's capable of handling anything you throw at it.

The biggest change in the Go 3 is not the Go itself but the charging case. The new charging case, which Insta360 calls the Action Pod, takes the pendant-like Go and morphs it into a GoPro-like form factor. The Pod has buttons to control the camera and a small, flippable screen for monitoring your shots. When you drop the Go 3 into the Action Pod, you essentially turn your Go 3 into a GoPro.

Compared to its predecessor, the Go 3 camera is slightly bulkier. It’s 9 grams heavier (35 grams without the base) and a few millimeters larger in every direction, but unless you hold the two side-by-side you probably won’t notice the difference. It is worth noting that the size difference is large enough that any accessories for the Go 2 probably won’t work with the Go 3 without some modifications. That said, the lens cover is interchangable, so if you bought neutral density or other filters for your Go 2, those will work fine on the Go 3.

The Go 3 attaches to the Action Pod base via a very strong magnet, and then you lock it into place with two clips, one on each side. There’s a button on the side of the case that releases the clips, and then you can pull the camera unit off the magnet. In my testing, the connection proved absolutely rock solid, including while riding around some very washboard dirt roads on the roof of my Wagoneer.

The Action Pod serves three purposes. It’s a charging unit, battery pack, and remote monitor. The latter is accomplished via a new 2.2-inch touchscreen, which can flip over the top to face forward so you can frame those vlogging shots. The screen is a huge leap forward over the Go 2’s tiny offering and is even larger and easier to use than the screen on Insta360’s action camera flagship, the One RS (8/10, WIRED Recommends),

The Go 3 comes with some nice accessories, all of which revolve around the magnetic mounting system, which means the mounts all work with either just the camera or the full Action Pod. There’s a pivot mount with a reusable sticky base; a pendant mount for chest-level POV shots; and the easy clip, which is designed to clip to the brim of your hat. I primarily used the sticky base and pendant, though I also often just put it in my mouth, which works surprisingly well for a POV shot when you’re, for example, paddleboarding.

The Go 3 sports the same 1/2.3-inch sensor and 11-mm f/2.2 lens with a 134-degree field of view. (For reference the GoPro Hero 11 Black’s widest field of view is 122 degrees.) Despite using the same sensor, the Go 3 adds quite a few new shooting modes, including stills and time-lapse, as well as higher-resolution video, which can now be shot at up to 2.7K at 30 frames per second.

In addition to the standard 2.7K video, which is primarily what I ended up shooting, there is a Freeframe video mode, similar to what the Go 2 used. In this mode, you can shoot the full field of view, but at a slightly lower 1440p resolution, and then crop when you’re editing. This allows you to slightly reframe the scene after the fact. The reframing capability is not as extensive as you'd get on a 360-degree camera, but you can center or track things you might not have noticed when you were shooting. Freeframe mode also means you can shoot one video and crop to 9:16, 16:9, 1:1, or whatever video dictates you need to follow. But remember, a kitten dies every time you pollute the world with vertical video.

I particularly liked the time-lapse mode, which has two very nice features. First, it can be saved as either a video (for quick uploading to the web) or as a series of images (including RAW files) for further processing. Second, there’s also a timer option to turn the camera on at a predetermined time, which is handy if you want to shoot star trails but don’t want to stay up all night to do it.

There’s now two microphones on the Go 3 camera and a new wind-suppression setting that actually works quite well. Together these mean much, much better sound than what the Go 2 was capable of recording.

In another step up from the Go 2, there are now no limits on clip length. The battery life is the one limiting factor, but it's quite good—45 minutes for just the camera, more when it’s in the Pod. The notorious overheating issues of the Go 2 have been solved. Mostly. I have seen some reports around the internet that the Go 3 overheats, but in months of testing I never encountered any heat issues, including during very long (30-minute) film times. That's a stark contrast to the Go 2, which seemed to overheat if you stared at it for too long.

Other new features include a slew of color profiles, with options customized for biking, urban landscapes, night, snow, and so on. I mostly shot in flat because I prefer to do my own color grading when editing, but it’s nice to have plenty of options when you’re shooting something that you don’t plan to edit extensively.

Speaking of editing, Insta360’s mobile app (iOS, Android) remains the same, which is a good thing. It’s still the easiest, most trouble-free app of all the action camera makers out there.

All of which is to say that the Go 3 is a very capable camera. But there are a couple of things I didn't like. It only has built-in memory; there's no SD card slot. I tested the 64-gigabyte model, which proved plenty of space, but transferring footage to my laptop was notably slower than transferring via a speedy microSD card.

The other things to know is that the footage from the Go 3 isn’t as good at what you’ll get out of the GoPro Hero 11 (9/10, WIRED Recommends), which has a larger sensor capable of 5.3K recording. I found that the Go 3 was pretty good though, especially when I dialed back the sharpening a bit. It was turned to high by default, and I set it to medium. Early on in my testing I experienced a couple of weird color shift issues where people's skin turned overly yellow, but a firmware update seems to have solved that issue.

The real place where the GoPro or the DJI Osmo Action 3 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) outshines the Go 3 is weather proofing. The Go 3 camera is waterproof to 5 meters, but the Action Pod with the camera attached is only IPX4. You should be fine shooting with it in the rain, but you cannot submerge it.

In the end, the footage the Go 3 produces is good enough for most people. If your primary use case is uploading to social media, there’s no reason to shoot anything more than 1080p. I never once noticed the 2.7K footage from the Go 3 being 2.7K, which is to say, unless you shoot side-by-side with a GoPro, most people would never be able to tell the image quality difference. I would strongly suggest going for the 64-gigabyte model, because it's not much more expensive, and it doubles your shooting time. There is no microSD card.

Everyone I met while shooting wanted to know—is it better than a GoPro? I don’t think that’s the right question. They’re two different beasts. The GoPro is a reliable, high-resolution beauty of an action camera and has been our top pick for years now. That said, if you don’t need the higher resolution and aren’t planning to shoot underwater much, the Go 3 is well worth considering, even if you already have a GoPro.

The tiny size and magnetic mounting system mean you can get shots that you just can’t with bigger cameras like the GoPro. More importantly, you can get those shots quickly and easily without a tripod—I stuck the Go 3 to road signs and the side of my vehicle (when parked), as well as a host of magnet mounting accessories like the hat clip and the POV necklace. It’s amazing how much easier and fun it is to film when you don’t need to set up a tripod.

Insta360 has done a good job of emphasizing this with the included accessories, too. In months of shooting, I have never once spent more than a minute or two getting the Go 3 mounted how I want. You can use it in ways you can’t use a GoPro, and it has allowed me to get shots I would previously not even have thought of shooting. For that reason alone, I think it’s worth the money if you’re in the market for a tiny action camera.