Why You Can Trust CNET DJI made a $119 phone camera stabilizer that folds and it's awesome
The Osmo Mobile 3 is its most travel-friendly phone stabilizer to date.
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
The redesigned Osmo Mobile 3 lets you fold and go.
Motorized phone camera stabilizers are great for getting smooth and steady shots from your phone -- assuming you use it. For me, it's one of those products you buy with the best intentions and then don't use because it's simply too large, awkward and fragile to bring with you all the time. DJI's Osmo Mobile 3 tackles this with a unique folding design that makes it more compact and easier to toss in a bag and go. And it's $10 less than its predecessor.
Available today for $119, the redesigned gimbal unlocks and folds fast and has locks to keep it from swiveling around. You can even throw it into a standby mode so you can partially shut it down, fold it and move to a new location and then quickly unfold and immediately start shooting. The whole device is lighter and more compact than previous models, but still runs for up to 15 hours on a single charge.
The new design also addresses a few issues users had with the Osmo Mobile 2. The gimbal no longer blocks the ports on your phone so you can connect an external mic and charge your device off the Osmo's battery. You also no longer need to manually rotate your phone from landscape to portrait as it can now do it with a button press and position the camera right-side up.
From left to right: DJI Osmo Mobile, Mobile 2 and the new Mobile 3.
A slider on the grip's side lets you activate your phone's zoom and a trigger in front will automatically switch between your phone's front and rear camera. In selfie mode you can even use hand gestures to start a self-timer for photos and video. The trigger will also do things like recenter the camera and start DJI's ActiveTrack feature that automatically tracks a subject and keeps them centered in the frame.
The Osmo Mobile 3 uses DJI's Mimo app it introduced with the palm-sized Osmo Pocket in November 2018. Although you can use the Osmo Mobile 3 with your phone's camera app, Mimo is what gives you all the unique features like ActiveTrack and gesture controls. Mimo also enables you to create panoramas and shoot motion time-lapse and hyper-lapse videos. There's a Story mode as well that will take your videos and edit them into short, social-friendly clips using one of 13 templates.
Though mainly known for its camera drones , DJI has spent much of the past year building out other categories. Last month it introduced a first-person view HD video transmission system for drone racing and a compact motorized gimbal for pro cameras. In June, DJI introduced a $500 RC robot rover with a mini cannon made for students. It launched its first action cam in May, the DJI Osmo Action.
