DJI goes pocket size for its latest gimbal

Hand-held gimbals have largely been the realm of pro videographers. But DJI is looking to change things up with an ultra-portable take on its popular Osmo line. The Osmo Pocket is a four-inch-tall version of the drone maker’s camera stabilizer that can either be plugged into an iPhone or utilized as a standalone.

At $349 it’s not exactly cheap — in fact, it’s about twice what the Osmo Mobile 2 is currently going for on Amazon. That’s due in part to the inclusion of a one-inch touchscreen that lets you shoot and preview videos without an external camera. Of course, it can also be used in tandem with an iPhone or Android device via a Lighting or USB-C dongle. 

I suspect that pricing is going to inhibit the product’s ability to reach a more mainstream audience — especially with all of the things users can currently accomplish with just an iPhone. But the Pocket incorporates DJI’s impressive technologies and shot modes to accomplish some pretty cool videos.

The device can actively recognize and track an image with a few taps. There are also FaceTrack, time-lapse, FPV, selfie and panorama features built in. For quick, production-quality shots, there are a number of different shot modes, similar to the ones found on the company’s Mavic drones. Story Mode features 10 templates, and Pro Mode gives the shooter a wide range of controls over the final shot.

The gimbal does three-axis stabilization to keep shots steady, while the camera can shoot 12-megapixel images and 4K video up to 60fps.

I had the opportunity to play around with the device a bit this week, ahead of today’s announcement, and found it to be fairly intuitive. We’ll get more time with the gimbal in the near future, and hopefully get some more insight into precisely what justifies the $350 price tag. For now, it seems prohibitively expensive for a product that’s clearly trying to sneak out just in time for the holidays.

It’s a hefty price tag for a product that will admittedly make for some very cool Instagram stories — but I’m more than happy to be proven wrong here. The company is going to offer up a bunch of different accessories to make the Osmo a bit more diverse, including a waterproof case and action camera-style mount, so it can double as something akin to a GoPro. There’s a wireless charging case, as well, which extends the battery by around two hours. 

The Osmo Pocket is available through DJI  for pre-order today and starts shipping December 15.