Insta360 has, in the recent past, turned out impressive 360-degree and ultra-compact cameras, out-innovating the market with thoughtful design and smart app features. Yet, the Chinese company had yet to venture into GoPro’s core action camera territory... until now. With the Ace Pro, Insta360 has delivered everything but the kitchen sink—a massive image sensor for impressive low-light capabilities, optics co-engineered with Leica, a flip-up screen, and best-in-class software—but is it enough to displace GoPro from the top of the pile?
As an action camera, the Ace Pro doesn’t break the mould when it comes to design, adopting a GoPro-style form factor, albeit a bit heavier and thicker. The added heft is on account of a bright 2.4-inch flip-up screen, a first in the action camera space, which proves rather handy if you’re framing your shot when filming yourself or when you’re shooting low-angle shots. Time will tell if the screen hinge holds up to the kind of rough conditions action cameras are subject to, but I’ve seen the similar flip screen on the Insta360 Go 3 go through a lot, and it’s held up just fine. The camera mounts onto proprietary mounts via magnets, and these include a quarter-inch screw mount for tripods and another for helmets.
More impressively, the Ace Pro uses a 1/1.3-inch image sensor that dwarfs the latest GoPro’s 1/1.9-inch sensor, which helps it take in more details, particularly in low-light scenarios. With the ability to shoot at up to 8 K resolution at 24 frames per second (or 4 K/30 fps, 60 fps, and 120 fps, and slow motion at 1080 p/240 fps), the footage is clean, sharp, well stabilised, and with vivid colours, making it instantly usable if you’re using it for vlogging—a common scenario for these cameras. Coupled with the Leica SUMMARIT lens, its low-light scenarios are where the Ace Pro really shines and pulls ahead of the faltering-in-low-light competition. Particularly in PureVideo mode, which uses the 5 nm AI chip, the camera is able to capture more light, reduce noise, and improve dynamic range in less-than-ideal dark environments. Pitted against the GoPro Hero 12, the Ace Pro pulls far ahead in low light and with better on-board audio recording; in good light, it’s a more even fight, with the GoPro exposing skin tones better but the Insta360 getting the overall scene exposure better. Photos shot at up to 48 megapixels are impressive, but you’ll likely prefer your smartphone for its sheer versatility.
Now, while you can take the memory card out of the Ace Pro and edit the videos directly on the computer, the Insta360 companion app is a huge part of using any of their hardware. It’s well designed and allows you to connect quickly to the camera and easily edit footage or change the aspect ratio (horizontal or vertical) for videos shot in FreeFrame mode. There’s even some generative AI magic to create visual effects from your footage and share it directly on social media. One interesting thing to note is that while the Ace Pro lacks GPS built in (like the latest GoPro), you can easily use your phone’s GPS signal—or even an Apple Watch—to add speed and altitude information to your clips while editing. Battery life too is decent, with the 1,650 mAh capacity battery lasting around 90–100 minutes on 4 K 30 fps video recording, and the thermal management is good as well.
As a first outing for the action cam market, the Ace Pro nails the brief rather well, and the flip screen, better app experience, and low-light performance do well to justify the premium pricing. For pure ruggedness, I’d still prefer the GoPro, but for all other use cases, including hiking or vlogging in a busy city, this would be my pick. If you’re in the market for a do-it-all action camera, you can't go wrong with the Insta360 Ace Pro.