The Ultimate Lanparte HHF-01 Review!

Although the Lanparte HHF-01 has been available on the market for a few years now, it is one of the very few gimbals in this niche that has been specifically designed for use with both smartphones and action cameras with its native mounts that come included with your purchase. As more and more people have been reaching out and asking about the HHF-01 over the last few months due to the new releases from the various smartphone and action camera brands, we decided that we would publish our full, dedicated Lanparte HHF-01 review for today’s article.

We are hoping that our article will be able to help anyone who is looking to capture content with their latest Apple or Samsung smartphone or GoPro action camera but keep in mind that pretty much any smartphone or action camera can mount to the HHF-01. On top of this, the HHF-01 has managed to not only earn but also maintain a great reputation for itself amongst the community.

It can be used by entry-level videographers, vloggers, social media influencers, and action sports enthusiasts to pretty much capture their content. The image stabilization for the gimbal actually holds up well today and offers some decent image quality for you too. That said though, the Lanparte HHF-01 does have a few drawbacks and still has a pretty high price tag for what you are getting so we feel that the new DJI Osmo Mobile 3 will likley be a much better addition to your collection of camera accessories.

Due to this, we would highly recommend that our readers seriously consider the Osmo Mobile 3 as it is without a doubt one of the best handheld gimbals made for smartphones and action cameras to date. It has only been available for the last few months and has quickly established itself as the top dog while earning an outstanding reputation amongst the community while also being cheaper than the Lanparte HHF-01 at the time of writing.

We just wanted to make our readers aware of this as early in the article as possible rather than waste your time reading through it only to get to the end for us to say go with the Osmo Mobile 3 to get the best bang for your buck. Anyway, with that out of the way, lets get stuck into our review of the Lanparte HHF-01 3 axis gimbal stabilizer.

Performance And Functionality

The Lanparte HHF-01 offers a maximum load capacity of around 0.6 pounds of total payload weight meaning that at the time of writing, it is easily able to support the vast majority of popular smartphones and action cameras on the market right now. In addition to this, a large number of smartphones are also light enough for you to also mount a removable smartphone lens to your device if you wish to get the best image quality possible while capturing your content.

The HHF-01 comes with three mounts as standard with your purchase to allow you to mount your devices too. The action camera mount is a standard GoPro mount that allows you to mount a GoPro action camera as well as any action cameras from other brands that use the same form factor as GoPro too. On the smartphone side of things, you have the 2.2 inch to 3 inch mount for smaller smartphones and the 2.5 inch to 3.6 inch mount for the larger smartphones. Provided that your smartphone comes within either of these width brackets, we are confident that the Lanparte HHF-01 will support the weight of your device.

The actual maximum battery life of the HHF-01 is without a doubt its major weakness and each full charge of its internal battery can only provide you with around three hours of use. The Osmo Mobile 3 from DJI on the other hand that is actually cheaper than the Lanparte HHF-01 at the time of writing can provide you with up to sixteen hours of battery life! This is one of the main reasons that we would always recommend that our readers go with the newer gimbal from DJI as it blows the Lanparte HHF-01 out the water.

When your HHF-01 does run out of battery you are able to recharge it in two hours and considering that you only get three hours of usable battery, this is another weak point whereas the Osmo Mobile 3 takes around four hours of charging and provides you with sixteen hours of usable battery. No matter what gimbal you opt to go with, more and more content creators who use their smartphone to capture their content are also adding a decent USB power bank to their collection of camera accessories.

This allows you to keep on charging your gimbal, smartphone, and action camera while out and about on your adventures if needed. To some extent, this can be used as a way to offset the low battery life of the Lanparte HHF-01 and ensure that you have plenty of juice to capture all your content while out and about.

The actual levels of image stabilization that are provided by the Lanparte HHF-01 are solid in all fairness to it. The detection and correction system that Lanparte used in the HHF-01 has aged well and it rapidly detects movement in the gimbal before having its brushless gimbal motors correct it as best it can. This results in some super smooth video footage that helps improve the overall image quality of your content giving it that professional look.

The Lanparte balancing algorithm is actually surprisingly good too considering they are a little known brand in the gimbal space. Their algorithm actually managed to hold its own against the larger, more established brands in the space such as DJI and Moza too. If the HHF-01 received the much-needed price reduction that we feel it needs then we can definatley see a spike in the number of people purchasing it as performance-wise, it does a solid job with only its price tag and battery life letting it down.

That said though, back when the Lanparte HHF-01 was actually released, battery issues were very common amongst smartphone and action camera gimbals anyway due to limited technology available that was small enough for these tiny gimbals. In our opinion, it is easy to see why the HHF-01 was able to earn such a large market share and grow such a large customer base. A large number of the smartphone and action camera content creators have also posted their own reviews of the Lanparte HHF-01. In our opinion, they are well worth skimming over as they offer some great insight into the performance and functionality of the gimbal in pretty much every situation you can think of.

User Interface And Control System

Unlike the vast majority of compeating smartphone and action camera handheld gimbal stabilizers on the market right now, there really is not much in the way of a control system or user interface with the Lanparte HHF-01. This can be both a blessing and a curse as it makes the gimbal extremely easy to learn right out of the box for anyone looking to purchase their very first 3 axis gimbal. On the flip side of this though, this can be pretty limiting for any advanced level videographers considering the Lanparte HHF-01 making the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 the better option due to its excellent user interface.

Other than attaching the correct mount to the gimbal head to allow you to attach your device there really is not much to do. The balancing process for the gimbal is also very straight forward and easy too. The two counterweight plates that are included with your purchase of the HHF-01 allow you to quickly and easily balance the gimbal ready for use within seconds, even for heaver smartphones letting you capture your footage without having to waste time.

In our opinion, Lanparte has done a solid job of making a very user-friendly gimbal interface but we feel anyone in the vlogging space or a social media influencer will likley grow out of the gimbal quickly due to its limitations. In our opinion, this is just another reason to go with the Osmo Mobile 3 from DJI instead as it is without a doubt one of, if not the best gimbal for smartphones and action cameras available right now.

Build Quality And Design

The simplicity of the design of the Lanparte HHF-01 lends itself to its build quality as it offering fewer features and functions mean that there are fewer things on the gimbal that can break or go wrong. In our opinion, the build quality of the HHF-01 is good enough though and offers a solid, tough, small, and lightweight gimbal stabilizer that can serve you well in the vast majority of situations you are likley to find yourself in.

The handle grip is made from silica gel too ensuring that you can get a firm, comfortable grip of the gimbal when in use to keep your smartphone or action camera safe and minimize the risk of you accidentally dropping it. If you are planning to do any kind of work in a niche where you are required to hold your gimbal stabilizer for long periods of time then this can definatley work in your favor and help minimize the risk of getting aches or hand cramps during use.

Our Verdict

That brings our Lanparte HHF-01 review to a close and although the gimbal is a solid bit of kit, we feel that it is massively overpriced at the time of writing and could do with its price tag slashing by a large amount. The DJI Osmo Mobile 3 just blows it out of the water in pretty much every single area making it the obvious option and at the time of writing, the price tag of the Osmo Mobile 3 is lower than that of the Lanparte HHF-01 leaving no reason to go with the HHF-01 in our opinion.