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DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P is a pretty simple proposition: an Osmo Pocket 4 with a second camera lens slapped inside. But is that extra lens worth the added size, weight, and cost relative to the regular Pocket 4? And how does it compare to the only rival on the market, Insta360’s dual-lens Luna Ultra?
It depends on what you’re filming. But I think most prospective buyers would get plenty of use out of the 4P’s 3x telephoto lens, and its quality is certainly impressive. Meanwhile, DJI has managed to undercut Insta360 on price while at least matching it on quality. For most, this will be the better buy, though the Luna Ultra has one major advantage: You can actually buy it in the US.
DJI’s travails in the US continue, and it won’t be releasing the Pocket 4P in the country, despite launches elsewhere. In Europe, it costs £529 / €599 (about $680) for the Standard Combo set, which includes a fill light, carry pouch, and a handle with a tripod thread. For many, it’ll be worth spending extra to get the £605 / €689 ($785) Vlog Combo, which also bundles in a larger carry case, a compact tripod, a DJI Mic Mini 2, and the FrameTap remote.
There had been hope that something remarkably like the Pocket 4P might emerge from Xtra, a company which popped up in the wake of DJI’s ban from the US, selling suspiciously similar products. That now looks unlikely: Xtra has delisted its Muse 2 Pro, halted preorders, and refunded deposits, while the FCC works to crack down on alleged DJI front companies. In short, don’t hold your breath for a US version of the Pocket 4P unless the FCC begins to lose its game of whack-a-mole.
If you are in a country where the Pocket 4P is on sale, what you’re getting really is a sibling to the Pocket 4, which I reviewed in April. It has the exact same body and controls, including an identical flip-out touchscreen, apart from minor cosmetic differences. It has an almost identical main camera, though there are some key differences I’ll get to in a minute. The software, stabilization, recording options, and in-built storage are all either identical, or close enough to count.
The two lenses are stacked, making for a bulky camera module. Tracking is mostly the same as before except for this new multi-person mode. As for the controls, they’re unchanged from the Pocket 4.
Almost every change is a ripple effect from the major new addition: a second lens. This 3x telephoto (or 60mm equivalent) sits above the default camera and is a remarkably close match in specs. It uses a slightly smaller sensor, a 1/1.28-inch-type, rather than 1-inch, but makes up for that with a faster f/1.8 aperture, instead of f/2.0. It supports in the same resolutions (4K landscape or 3K portrait), shoots similar 37-megapixel stills, and can be used in low-light, slow-motion, and timelapse modes. About the only place you can’t use it is panoramas.
The quality of the telephoto is impressive. Details are crisp, helped by the same impressive gimbal stabilization that keeps the main lens steady — I recorded some astonishingly stable footage from a small boat trip on a blustery day in the North Sea. I worried the larger camera might make stabilization trickier, but I needn’t have — if anything, my footage from the 4P feels more stable than from the 4.
The Pocket 4P is capable of recording 4K footage at up to 12x zoom, but beyond 6x you will see the quality begin to drop off. At 12x footage feels a little soft, details lost and text blurry, and I wouldn’t recommend zooming that far unless you really have to.
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