The DJI Osmo Pocket 4 has been released and the Pocket 4P has been shown to journalists (including me), but the cameras lack one feature that the big new competitor from arch-rival Insta360 will bring to the market: a detachable remote control. Not built-in as standard, at least.
The Insta360 Luna and Luna Ultra are also in that pre-release stage; I've seen them and had hands-on experiences, but the final on-sale date is still a little way in the future.
However, if you are looking for a camera from DJI that has a detachable touchscreen, I remembered this morning that you can actually already buy it.
If you want a camera set up with a detachable remote from DJI, you'll find that you actually already own the 'camera' element. That's because the device I'm talking about is the DJI Osmo Mobile 8P, which is a gimbal for your phone – and its major new feature was a magnetically-attached detachable touchscreen with remote control for the gimbal.
This was a spectacular update from the previous gimbals, able to share the screen from your phone to help compose shots remotely – as well as encasing the thumb-controlled joystick and the record button in an even smaller (albeit thicker) remote housing than the one for the Luna.
I find it interesting that this product could be developed by a product development team at DJI HQ for the Mobile 8P phone gimbal, without the idea making its way to the new DJI Osmo Pocket 4P gimbal cameras.
Was it a deliberate choice or do the teams not communicate?
Will it actually set the Pocket 4 and 4P back against its new competition? The DJI Osmo Pocket 4 (the single camera version) already has the advantage of being on sale already, but once all four devices are out – and in all the various colors we've seen (black and white variants) – could the remote make a big difference?
I think there is a lot of potential for the Luna to win because its detachable remote has one extra benefit: a built-in microphone. To be fair, both DJI and Insta's pocket gimbal cameras support wireless microphones – but a built-in detachable mic is a usability boost in some situations.
A gimbal means smooth video. Remote controls like the one on the Luna or the Mobile 8P are ideal for a piece to camera because you can use the device's built-in tripod to position the camera, then ensure your shot is perfect from a distance.
As to which you choose, what matters now is your intended workflow. Whether you want to shoot video straight to your phone or to a dedicated camera, the choice is between these brands (and how much you spend).
Insta360's price point is that of an 8K camera for "a new generation of content creators" (as Max Richter, joint CEO of Insta360, put it). The Mobile 8P, on the other hand, is a premium camera gimbal, and arguably the best smartphone phone gimbal, but that's a much lower outlay.
It's also worth adding that all the cameras in question can be remotely controlled by phone apps, too, but phone apps aren't the same and don't have physical joysticks.
