DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 is widely considered to be one of the best vlogging/video cameras, so I was excited to get my hands on one when I made my order at The Photography & Video Show in March earlier this year. The portable vlogging camera proved to be so popular this was on backlog and took five weeks for my Creator Combo kit to turn up.
However, the lengthy wait times weren’t my biggest gripe with the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, the truth is I’d happily wait for a vlogging camera with such a highly decorated spec sheet – it has brilliant image and video quality, a huge dynamic range due to its large 1inch sensor, smooth stabilised footage and innovative large flippy screen which makes it easy to record reels for social media in the portrait orientation up to 3K, as well as more conventional landscape orientation footage at up to 4K. It also works flawlessly with the DJI Mic 2 that comes included if you buy the Creator Combo bundle and provides industry leading audio quality. So what could I possibly have a problem with?
Well, my biggest issue isn’t with the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 at all – it’s to do with the DJI Mimo app which is mandatory to activate it and use it – it gives you the option to skip this five times before your device is locked and requires activation.
It would still be annoying (and I would argue unnecessary) if the Mimo app was easy to use. However, as I found out the hard way, it’s not clear to get setup and on my phone, which was running the correct OS for the app, it simply refused to launch altogether – am I required to buy a new phone so that I can use my DJI Osmo Pocket 3?
I eventually caved in and upgraded to a newer phone and this time I could get the app to work, though it really wasn’t very user-friendly and took me a long time to figure out that the app wanted access to my phone’s camera so it could scan the QR code on the device. I took some comfort looking at the woeful overall one-star rating for the DJI Mimo app on the Google Play store full of negative user reviews knowing that others experienced similar problems.
DJI will of course argue that this is necessary for registration purposes, though the sceptical side of me would say it’s so that you agree to their lengthy terms and conditions which states you have a “limited license” of the product, it also means you have to agree to its terms of “binding arbitration and no class action” where users agree to give up the rights to defend themselves in court should something go wrong. Clearly there’s something very wrong here and if this becomes the mainstream for digital cameras in years to come then you’ll see me going back to ‘dumb’ cameras without hesitation to avoid this nonsense.
In many ways the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 has the potential to be the best vlogging camera on the market today. This makes it all the more disappointing that DJI has chosen to pull such an unnecessary and anti-consumer move. In recent months I’ve spent time reviewing the FeiyuTech Pocket 3 which although has a less impressive spec sheet in some ways compared to the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, it becomes an attractive option for vlogging for me because it’s ready to go straight out of the box without the need for an app – as a camera rightly should be.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk
