The second lens makes DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P my favorite video camera

DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P is a simple concept: an Osmo Pocket 4 with a second camera lens shot inside. But is the extra lens worth the size, weight, and price to match Regular pocket 4? And how does it compare to the only competitor in the market, Insta360’s dual-lens Luna Ultra?

It depends on what you are shooting. But I think most consumers can use the 4P 3x telephoto lens more, and the quality is amazing. Meanwhile, DJI has managed to undercut the Insta360 on price while matching it with quality. For many, this will be a good buy, although the Luna Ultra has one big advantage: You can buy it in the US.

DJI’s woes in the US continue, and it is not releasing the Pocket 4P in the country, even if it is launched elsewhere. In Europe, it costs £529 / €599 (about $680) for the Standard Combo set, which includes a full flash, a bag, and a handle with a tripod thread. For many, it will be worth spending the extra money to get the £605 / €689 ($785) Vlog Combo, which also packs a bigger bundle, a compact tripod, a DJI Mic Mini 2and FrameTap remote.

There it was hope that something amazing like Pocket 4P may come from Xtra, a company that emerged after the ban of DJI in the US, selling the same products with suspicion. This seems unlikely: Xtra has said removed his Muse 2 Propre-empted, and refundable deposits, where the FCC applies destroying the so-called frontline companies of DJI. In short, don’t hold onto your Pocket 4P US air unless the FCC starts leaking its whack-a-mole game.

If you and in the country where the Pocket 4P is sold, what you’re getting is a sibling to the Pocket 4, which I reviewed back in April. It has exactly the same body as the controls, including a similar design, except for minor embellishments. It has a similar great camera, though there are some big differences that I’ll get to in a moment. Software, stability, recording methods, and built-in storage—all are the same, or close to the same calculation.

Almost every improvement comes from a new addition: a second lens. This 3x telephoto (or 60mm equivalent) sits above the standard camera and is very similar in specs. It uses a slightly smaller sensor, the 1/1.28-inch type, rather than 1-inch, but it makes up for it with a faster f/1.8 aperture, instead of f/2.0. It supports the same options (4K format or 3K image), shoots the same 37 megapixels, and can be used in low light, slow motion, and time travel modes. The only setting you can’t use is panorama.

The telephoto quality is impressive. Detail is superb, aided by the same impressive stabilization that makes a large lens so stable – I captured surprisingly stable images from a small boat trip on a calm day in the North Sea. I was worried that the larger camera might make stabilization difficult, but I needn’t have been – if anything, my footage from the 4P is spot on. More information more stable than 4.

The Pocket 4P can capture 4K images up to 12x zoom, but beyond 6x you’ll see the quality start to drop. At 12x the images are a little soft, with lost detail and blurry text, and I wouldn’t recommend zooming in this far unless you have to.

It’s better nearby. A small aperture of f/1.8 results in a very tight field of focus with a tight background, meaning crisp bokeh. This is fine by me – this is a great camera for photography – but also makes it a great camera for video or pet photography.

There are a few, short cuts in the videos when you switch between lenses while shooting. Sometimes I see color changes at the same time, although most of the time, the videos from the two cameras look the same.

The difference is slight because the main camera has a higher resolution, up to 17 stops, and support for DJI’s new 10-bit D Log 2 record. This is the biggest upgrade that the Pocket 4P main camera has on the Pocket 4’s – this is a new sensor, but the same size and resolution as before, and with the same lenses. In high light, the upgrade is minimal, only visible in difficult conditions, although the camera still shows some limitations when shooting in the dark.

Welcome as the telephoto is, it comes with disadvantages. The size is predictable. At 230g, the Pocket 4P is almost 40g heavier than its sibling. And while the body of each camera is the same, the gimbal and lens mounts here are almost twice the size, making this one taller and wider. This is still a great looking, lightweight camera, and the weight isn’t enough to make it difficult to use. But it just feels a little less baggy than before, which can be a hindrance if you want to travel.

The new design makes me a little worried about stability. When the camera is turned off, the two lenses now point straight ahead, instead of into the gimbal arm, meaning they’re exposed. This is made worse by the fact that DJI no longer offers a camera shutter, a safety feature that I miss. Instead, the lenses are slightly modified. This provides some protection from scuffs and scratches, but makes it easy for dust to collect inside. You’ll want to keep a cleaning cloth handy, and the camera may need more reproduction than previous generations.

DJI says the Pocket 4P will last for 210 minutes of use, half an hour less than the Pocket 4. That’s still a lot for me. Charging is the same, it is fully charged in 32 minutes, and the storage has not changed: 107GB built-in, supported by 1TB microSD cards.

The program experience is very similar. There are three buttons and a fun slider on the device, with many settings accessed by turning one or the other on the 2-inch touchscreen display. Sometimes it’s given the size, and I still move the wrong way more times than I care to admit, but it works. The biggest new addition to the 4P is the new mass tracking system, which can identify multiple subjects while tracking the middle man.

Of particular interest is support for DJI’s FrameTap, a small wireless controller that lets you control the Pocket 4P remotely. FrameTap was launched in April and is huge Osmo Mobile 8P gimbalbut this is the first Pocket device to support it. You can start recording, use the joystick to rotate the gimbal or zoom in and out, and access multiple controls and playback. You can’t access any settings, and you can’t change the transition or frame rate from FrameTap.

FrameTap support is a clear response to Insta360’s Luna Ultra, which launched earlier this year with its dual-camera setup in a similar design. A unique feature of the Luna Ultra allows you to remove the entire front panel to use as a remote; DJI’s FrameTap is a simple solution to the same problem, with the downside that there is no way to connect the remote to the camera when it’s not in use.

The two cameras are remarkably similar in specifications. The Insta360 has the advantage of offering 8K footage from the main camera, but the new DJI has better battery life, flexible settings, slower motion, and twice the built-in storage. All that, and it’s £150 / €130 ($150) cheaper in Europe, which makes this a great deal. The main thing Luna Ultra has going for it is that it’s real sold in the US, $769.99.

Taken together, the Osmo Pocket 4P is quite a feat. It combines the slight improvements of the Pocket 4’s main camera with a new phone that offers its own functionality, including beautiful bokeh. There are a few downsides to portability and battery life, which are good reasons to favor the Pocket 4 if you don’t expect to use the telephoto here. But otherwise the Pocket 4P is better than both its stablemate DJI and its competitor Insta360, and without a doubt it is the version of this form that I am tempted to buy myself.

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge