Best Smartphone Gimbal 2024: Our top choices for iPhone and Androids

A successor to the five-star Insta360 Flow, the Insta360 Flow Pro builds upon the original’s foundations with a host of useful improvements.

One of the most notable upgrades comes with the inclusion of Apple’s DockKit technology, which allows third-party objects, such as gimbals, to automatically track subjects via the iPhone’s native camera app. 

Remember that although DockKit is an Apple technology that’s made for iPhone, the Insta360 Flow Pro is still compatible with Android smartphones too, and you’ll be glad to know that even with DockKit integration, we found tracking to be smoother and more responsive when using the Insta360 app. The app is an especially useful feature as it supports a range of shooting modes, includes a powerful built-in editing suite and offers numerous ways to share your finished videos straight to social media.

At just under 400g, the gimbal itself is lightweight and folds down to a compact, almost pocketable size. It also comes equipped with a soft storage bag to help keep the device safe and secure when you’re filming on the go.

Operating the Insta360 Flow Pro is simple and mirrors the ease of its predecessor. On the device you’ll find a single circular touch panel which handles most of the controls, such as switching between modes and adjusting your phone camera’s zoom.

There’s also an analogue stick to manually move the gimbal arm plus dedicated buttons for controlling the power, switching between lenses and changing the phone orientation. Finally, you’ll also find a front trigger which is used to control subject tracking and reset the gimbal position. Although there’s certainly a lot of controls to get your head around, after a time we did find them easy to master.

Although it’s slightly less than its predecessor, the Insta 360 Flow Pro still boasts a decent 10-hour battery life and thanks to its power bank function, you can even use the gimbal to top up your smartphone’s battery whilst you film. 

Reviewer: Sam Kieldsen

Full review: Insta360 Flow Pro

If you’re looking for a more established mobile gimbal, the DJI OM 5 remains a fantastic choice with its simple controls and excellent companion app. 

The OM 5 is even more lightweight than the Insta360 Flow at 292g or 326g with the magnetic phone clamp. That’s also significantly less than the 390g DJI OM 4, though the build quality is still excellent. The clamp itself is comparable to that on the newer Flow, employing a magnetic mechanism able to hold any phone between 170g and 290g. 

There’s also a 215mm extension rod and a mini-tripod accessory, both of which are included in the box, along with a wrist strap and a soft bag for storage. 

Stabilisation is excellent and the gimbal arm is strong and responsive for beautifully smooth footage and ActiveTrack 4.0 automatic tracking is brilliant, though fast pans with ActiveTrack can have the OM 5 straining to keep up. 

One of the biggest benefits of choosing the DJI OM 5 is DJI’s Mimo app. The app lets you adjust the gimbal performance settings beyond the physical controls and access a range of trick shot modes including Dyna-Zoom, hyperlapse, timelapse and CloneMe panorama. You can even use gesture controls to start and stop recording without touching the screen and tutorial templates and a surprisingly rich editing suite within the app make it easy to create polished videos. 

One downside is the battery life which, at 6.5 hours, is much shorter than that on both the InstaFlow 360 and the DJI OM 4. That being said, 6.5 hours is still plenty of time for most vlogs. 

It’s good to note that DJI has since succeeded the DJI OM 5 with the DJI OM 6, a gimbal we haven’t gotten around to testing ourselves just yet. However, 2021’s OM 5 remains an excellent mobile gimbal two years on. 

Reviewer: Sam Kieldsen

Full Review: DJI OM 5

Before Insta360 stepped onto the gimbal scene, the Zhiyun Smooth Q4 was the DJI OM series’ biggest rival and it remains a fantastic option as well as a clear upgrade over the Zhiyun Smooth Q3. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly mobile gimbal, you’ll want to consider the Smooth Q4. 

The gimbal has a more seamless design than the Smooth Q3 with a grip that wraps all the way around the handle, a new folding mechanism and a scroll wheel, which we found offered more precise movements than the zoom slider on its predecessor. 

The clasp is also more compact, though Zhiyun has yet to adopt the magnetic solution used by DJI and Insta360. That being said, the Smooth Q4 has added magnets to its fill light to allow the accessory to be snapped on and off. There’s also an extendable arm and tripod included in the box, along with colour filters for the fill light. 

Stabilisation is great with five modes to choose from, including Pan Follow, Lock, Follow, POV and Vortex, and SmartFollow 3.0 tracking is excellent when it comes to keeping your subject in the frame. Additional features, including Timelapse, MagicClone Pano, tutorials and an editing suite, can be found in the ZY Cami app, which feels very similar to DJI Mimo. 

The Smooth Q4 outlasts the DJI OM 5 and the Insta360 Flow when it comes to battery life with 15 hours more than enough time to get you through multiple shoots. 

Reviewer: Thomas Deehan

Full Review: Zhiyun Smooth Q4

Another budget-friendly pick is the Asus ZenGimbal. Like Insta360, Asus is relatively new to the mobile gimbal scene. This option is best suited for beginners with its 360-rotation and simplified app – as long as you don’t have an iPhone, that is. 

The Asus ZenGimbal has a design that is reminiscent of the Zhiyun Smooth 5 with its all-black aesthetic and atypical folding mechanism. The controls have been simplified for beginners and the gimbal comes with a small tripod, though we did find that the folding mechanism on this device wasn’t the easiest to pack away. 

We were impressed by just how quiet the ZenGimbal is in operation and its ability to pan 360-degrees without getting caught by a threshold makes it possible to capture incredible footage without physically moving your position. This makes the gimbal extremely forgiving to amateurs with a much smaller learning curve compared with the other gimbals on this list. 

The Asus Shot app is similarly beginner-friendly with a simple interface that minimises clutter without sacrificing substance. The app includes standard photo and video modes, along with hyperlapse, time-lapse and panorama modes. 

There are also subject and object tracking modes that offer incredibly smooth footage and work just as well as the tech found on competing gimbals. The biggest letdown here is the fact that the Asus Shot app seems to be completely unusable on iOS devices, resulting in choppy frame rates that weren’t present in the Android app. 

The ZenGimbal has a 2900 mAh battery which we found was more than enough to last several days of shooting, though Asus has made no direct claims in this area. 

Reviewer: Thomas Deehan

Full Review: Asus ZenGimbal