The Ultimate Feiyu Vlog Pocket Review!
The smartphone gimbal market is becoming more and more popular due to the camera sensors of the latest smartphones being just as good, if not better than the camera sensors on some of the popular point and shoot cameras like the Canon G7X or Sony RX100 series. Due to this, more and more social media influencers and vloggers are starting to switch over to using their smartphones to capture all of their content needs. As the saying goes, the best camera is the one that you have with you and in this day and age, it is rare to find someone without their smartphone in their pocket.
With the increase in people using their smartphones to capture their content, we have noticed a fair amount of people reaching out about how they can best improve the image quality captured on their smartphone. They are usually based around requests for reviews or comparisons of smartphone gimbals and over the last few weeks, we have noticed a fair few people reaching out about a dedicated Feiyu Vlog Pocket review article.
Due to this, we have decided to make the Feiyu Vlog Pocket the subject of today’s article and publish our thoughts on the gimbal and review it. Our hope is that we will be able to help any of our readers who are considering adding the stabilizer to their collection of smartphone accessories as we do feel that there are better options available.
At the time of writing, we feel that the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 is leagues ahead of the Feiyu Vlog Pocket and should be seriously considered as your new potential gimbal. It has only been on the market for a few weeks but has already established itself as the dominant smartphone gimbal. It offers outstanding performance and functionality, has a price tag similar to the Feiyu Vlog Pocket, and has managed to earn itself an excellent reputation amongst the community. It pretty much does everything the Feiyu gimbal does but better without much of an increase in its price tag with it only being around $20 more at the time of writing depending on where you purchase it.
That said though, we will still be going over our full review of the Feiyu Vlog Pocket as we have seen multiple people reaching out about it. Since its release, it has managed to grow a decent reputation amongst the community and its lower price tag can allow it to serve as a more budget-friendly smartphone gimbal. Due to this, you can argue that it has its place in the market if you are on a very tight budget just keep in mind that you do get a lower level of image stabilization than with the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 while only saving a small amount.
Performance And Functionality
Now, many people who use their smartphone to capture their content will likely keep their smartphone in a case while recording and use an aftermarket smartphone lens for better image quality too. Thankfully, the spare load capacity of the gimbal is easily enough to support both of these allowing you to quickly and easily mount a smartphone with these accessories on it without issue.
As gimbal technology has come on a fair bit over the last few years these higher maximum load capacities are pretty common in the smartphone gimbal space these days. Additionally, although the Feiyu Vlog Pocket has been designed for use with a smartphone, you are able to mount a third-party action camera mounting plate to the gimbal to allow you to mount popular action cameras such as GoPros due to its high load capacity.
One area where Feiyutech has struggled with some of their previous gimbals is with the maximum battery life of their gimbals with each full charge. Thankfully, the Feiyu Vlog Pocket offers a very respectable fourteen hours of juice for every charge but on the flip side of this, the battery can take as long as five hours to charge back to full.
With more and more smartphone-based content creators adding a decent quality, high-level USB power bank to their smartphone camera accessories, we would have preferred to see a quicker recharging time and a battery life around the nine to ten-hour mark in all honesty. That would still be plenty of juice for most users and in addition to your smartphone, if your power banks output levels are high enough, you can top up the juice in your gimbal in your downtime if needed.
As the Osmo Mobile 3’s price tag is only a small amount mare than that of the Feiyu Vlog Pocket we feel it is well worth the upgrade for the better image quality. It’s no secret that the vlogging and social media influencer spaces are becoming more and more competitive and image quality can be a quick and easy thing you can improve to help increase the chance of converting a viewer into a subscriber or follower.
Although Feiyutech has done a solid job of upgrading the gimbal motors and gimbal sensors on the Feiyu Vlog Pocket to try and keep up with the competition when it comes to the detection and correction or motion, we feel they have fallen short. Their balancing algorithm is still a fair bit behind what brands like DJI, Zhiyun, and Moza have managed to develop and even relatively new brands to the gimbal space like Snoppa with their very popular Snoppa Atom beat the Feiyu Vlog Pocket too.
Although the Feiyu Vlog Pocket has managed to earn a few decent reviews since its release it is not surprising that it never really took off and that units like the Zhiyun Smooth 4 took a much larger market share. On top of that, the latest generation of smartphone gimbals have just been released with both the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 and Snoppa Atom being excellent bits of kit.
User Interface And Control System
In our opinion, the Snoppa Atom has the best user control system of all smartphone gimbals at the time of writing. Not only is it just as easy to use as the Feiyu Vlog Pocket but it also offers some solid manual control over the gimbal head as well as some other basic controls. If you are more of an advanced gimbal user and want some advanced customisation then the Zhiyun Smooth 4 is probably the better option as its interface offers you some heavy customization.
We just feel that the interface for the Feiyu Vlog Pocket is an area where Feiyutech came so close yet so far at absolutely nailing it. Unfortunately, this is becoming commonplace for Feiyutech who was once a very highly regarded brand in the gimbal space. As of late though, their products have definatley taken a wrong turn and their latest AK range of gimbals for mirrorless and DSLR cameras are littered with issues.
Smartphone App
On top of this, the actual navigation menu of the Feiyutech smartphone app needs a total overhaul too. Not only is it confusing to navigate but settings that you want easy access to take a bunch of time to locate and tweak. In our opinion, the app needs a total overhaul to even compete with what DJI, Zhiyun, and Snoppa offer but due to the issues with their latest flagship gimbal range mentioned above, we doubt that this will be high on their priority list.
The competing apps tend to be much easier to actually sync to their respective gimbals and not have any issues with random disconnects like the Feiyutech app. On top of this, as you can actually connect to the gimbal via the competing apps, you can actually use their functionality too. This includes quick and easy access to their gimbal settings as well as some solid wireless remote control functionality too.
Balancing
Now, as we touched on earlier in the article, a large number of people who will be looking at potentially purchasing the Feiyu Vlog Pocket will likely be first-time 3 axis gimbal owners. Due to this, they may have some worries about actually balancing the gimbal but there really is no need to worry. As we mentioned back in the performance and functionality section, the majority of smartphones on the market are very lightweight coming in at under 0.4 pounds making them very easy to balance.
Even if you are a first-time gimbal user, we are confident that you will be able to quickly and easily balance the Feiyu Vlog Pocket without issue. Although the whole process is very simple, the user manual that is included with the gimbal offers an easy to follow user guide on how to balance the gimbal. Additionally, in the unlikely situation that you end up running into a problem or having issues, there are a bunch of tutorial videos on YouTube on how to balance the gimbal to offer additional assistance.
Build Quality And Design
As you can see from the image above, you are able to quickly and easily switch the Feiyu Vlog Pocket between portrait and landscape as required. If you are into vlogging and involved in the YouTube space then you will probably know that landscape style footage tends to do better. If you are involved in Instagram then portrait style video footage does better. With many people cross-promoting on multiple platforms, the fully adjustable gimbal head on the Feiyu Vlog Pocket allows you to switch between the two as required with ease.
The build quality of the Feiyu Vlog Pocket is solid too with the gimbal being pretty tough when you factor in the weight and size of it. Although the gimbal is around the middle of the pack when it comes to smartphone gimbals, it is on the lighter side but not as light as the Snoppa Atom or DJI Osmo Mobile 3 or even the Zhiyun Smooth 4.
The lighter the gimbal you have the easier it is to hold for longer periods of time as required when capturing your video footage. On top of this, the lower the weight the easier it is to pack in your luggage for air travel without going over your limits and having to pay additional fees. As many of the vloggers and social media influencers who often purchase a smartphone gimbal are involved in the travel space, this can be a major factor.
Our Verdict
That brings our Feiyu Vlog Pocket review to an end and as you will probably expect, we would recommend that our readers seriously consider adding the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 to their collection of smartphone camera accessories over the Feiyu Vlog Pocket. It is just a much better gimbal in ever area and depending on the vendor you purchase it from, the Osmo Mobile 3 is only around $20 to $30 more than the Feiyu Vlog Pocket making it a much better option in our opinion.
