I'm not surprised that the 360-degree camera no one is talking about is now the obvious best deal!

If you ask me, you shouldn't be buying another ordinary compact or mirrorless or DSLR camera. New ones don't change the game that much. If you're out to take advantage of the bargains, you should extend your repertoire with something genuinely creative and different. There are two key options – drones and 360-degree cameras. 

This is a great deal on what was, until very recently, the best 360-degree action camera you could buy. and It's still the highest resolution... costing $403 in the States, or £411 in the UK, in a bundle with the selfie stick that you will soon discover is essential.

Insta360 X4 Get-Set Bundle: was $570 now $403 at Amazon

SAVE 29% The Insta360 X series is the leading 360-degree camera, and bundled with its famous "invisible selfie stick", a memory card to record 8K video, and a specially moulded lens guard, this is everything you need to record complete immersive spherical video or stills of what is happening around you – which you can then crop into later using the software (or have it automatically track you using AI).

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I love 360-degree cameras. I wasn't sure that I would at first, so I took one on a family vacation and it ended up going really well, capturing some images I didn't think possible.

Another brilliant trick is putting the camera on the end of the telescopically extendable "invisible selfie stick" and putting it out of the window for a very impressive selfie. 

Even better, the app – which works on my phone, my Mac or a Windows computer – can edit from a still photo into lots of cool photo or video effects like "Small World".

You can use the device, in other words, to make video from stills without it being boring, which is cool (it even has some presets with audio to help with this). Your socials will thank you.

Why is the X4 version of the camera so heavily discounted, you ask? Well there is now an Insta360 X5 out, and I've reviewed that camera too and done a thorough X5 X4 versus comparison.

I did that before the discount was this big, though, and I have to admit that, right now, I might think a little differently. The thing is the most important feature that came in the X series was probably the jump from the X3 to X4 which came with 8K resolution and that really is a significant improvement. The X4 also brought with it removable lens protectors, meaning you could more comfortably use the camera in rough-and-tumble scenarios.

The X5 has some additional improvements, as you'd expect. The battery lasts longer, and there are other improvements to the way you can replace the lenses after an accident.

Neither is quite as significant, I'd argue, though. Which means that if you can get not only the camera but also the crucial selfie stick (it makes so much difference to the variety of images / video you can get) and a memory card for quite a bit less money than the standard asking price then it might well be worth thinking about the X4 deals.

To get the latest model you can expect to part with a fair bit more money: