The Ultimate Snoppa Atom Review!

Smartphone camera sensors are becoming better and better with each year that comes and goes with many people now choosing to use their smartphone camera for their vlogging and recording needs. As the saying goes, the best camera is the one that you have with you and in this day and age, most of us always carry our smartphone with us in our daily lives.

Due to this, we have noticed a massive increase in both the number of brands producting smartphone gimbals as well as the number of people reaching out with questions about them. Although there have been a few companies who are new to the smartphone game launch in the smartphone space, the only real one to make an impact to date and take a share of the market from the more established brands like DJI and Zhiyun is Snoppa.

Their gimbals really are excellent quality considering that they are a relitivly new company to the gimbal space and we are seeing more and more people reaching ours for a dedicated Snoppa Atom review. Now, as our regular readers will probably know, since the recent release of the DJI Osmo Mobile 3, we feel that it is definatley the best smartphone gimbal available on the market but in all honesty, the Snoppa Atom is a pretty close second pace with the once reigning champion, the Zhiyun Smooth 4 coming in at third.

The Snoppa Atom has basically tried to take all of the best features from all of the compeating gimbals on the market right now, put them all into one handheld gimbal for smartphones and adding in any of the weaknesses that compeating gimbals have. In all fairness to them, they have actually done an excellent job and we would feel confident in saying that they were the best smartphone gimbal on the market until DJI released their Osmo Mobile 3 a few weeks back with their latest technology.

That said though, we know that some people are not fans of the DJI brand and prefer to go with an alternative such as Zhiyun but now, you also have the option of going with Snoppa too. As Zhiyun seems to be dragging their heels with regards to their next-generation smartphone gimbal, Snoppa is in a good position to take a decent market share away from them and grow their brand further.

This really shows in the number of excellent reviews the community have posted for the Snoppa Atom. They offer an excellent insight into the performance of the gimbal from other smartphone videographers who use it as their go-to gimbal stabilizer of choice and wanted to share their thoughts. We will also be sharing our thoughts on the gimbal below as we go over our dedicated Snoppa Atom review.

Performance And Functionality

Now, considering that the Snoppa Atom is essentially one of the first products from a startup that has been primarily funded via croudsourcing, they have done an excellent job with their products when it comes to performance and functionality. The Snoppa Atom is definatley well up there with the market leaders as we mentioned above and more established brands like Feiyutech as essentially struggling to even get a market share in the smartphone gimbal space.

The Snoppa Atom is able to support a massive 0.68-pound maximum load capacity too and although this is nothing when you look at gimbals designed for mirrorless or DSLR cameras, for a smartphone gimbal, it is the second-highest load capacity available at the time of writing. This ensures that it can easily stabilize the payload of popular smartphones from the Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel ranges with ease.

In addition to this, there is plenty of load capacity left over for you to leave your phone in a heavy protective case as well as mount an aftermarket smartphone lens to ensure that you get the best image quality possible. If you are in the vlogging or social media space then adding a stabilizer to your collection of smartphone camera accessories in addition to a high-quality aftermarket lens can really make your content stand out against the competition.

With the smartphone gimbal stabilizer space becoming more and more competitive with each year, gimbal manufacturers are doing everything they can to try and stay ahead of the competition. The massive load capacity of the Snoppa Atom offers the advantage of being able to also mount an action camera to the gimbal when required too. Keep in mind that you will have to purchase the relevant aftermarket action camera mount if you want this functionality though. As many vloggers will often use an action camera to supplement the video footage that they capture using their smartphone, this can be a solid little feature that may help make the Snoppa Atom the better option for you and your needs.

One of the main advantages of the Snoppa Atom over most of the competition at the time of writing it that it is able to offer a massive twenty-hour maximum battery life with each charge of its battery. This is by far the highest battery life per charge available at the time of writing with most other gimbals coming in at around half of that.

In addition to the massive battery life of the gimbal, it also supports two way charging both wirelessly and via the charging cable. This means that if you are capturing video footage on your phone in higher resolutions such as 4K that can drain your battery, the gimbal’s power supply is able to help top your phone up and keep you going.

Now, although it is nice to have such a massive battery life on the gimbal, the twelve hours offered by most of the compeating brands is probably plenty for most of our readers. In addition to this, many smartphone vloggers and videographers will also carry a USB power bank with them anyway. If the power output of the bank is high enough, you can also use it to recharge your gimbal while on the go in addition to your smartphone anyway.

This is a steadily increasing trend too with most gimbal brands starting to realize this and go with the smaller lighter batteries for their products to keep the size and weight of the gimbal as low as possible. The usefulness of the massive battery life of the gimbal is going to depend on your needs but it is definatley nice to have.

The cinematic sample footage above has been recorded with an iPhone 8 Plus mounted to the Snoppa Atom and shows just how good this great little 3 axis gimbal stabilizer actually is. As you can see, the image quality captured by the iPhone is outstanding and taken that step further due to the image stabilization provided by the Snoppa Atom. Another advantage that the Atom has over many competing smartphone gimbals is that its stabilization is free from lag so everything stays smooth.

The gimbal motors, gimbal sensors, and balancing algorithms in the Snoppa Atom all work together perfectly to ensure that even the slightest movement detected by the sensors is quickly processed by the algorithm and then corrected by the motors. This is a lightning-fast process that ensures optimal image stabilization even when taking part in activities with lots of small and rapid vibrations.

The Snoppa Atom also supports a bunch of excellent gimbal modes too with most of the beating out what brands like Feiyutech and Evo have in their most recent gimbals. The point of view mode on the Atom is particularly good and provides you with an easy way to capture natural-looking fully stabilized video footage with ease.

It really is easy to see why the Snoppa Atom is such a popular option and why so many people have taken to using it as their go-to smartphone gimbal of choice. As we mentioned earlier in the gimbal, the Snoppa Atom was the best smartphone gimbal until the recent released of the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 but still manages to hold its own in many areas. On top of that, the Snoppa Atom also has a number of excellent independent reviews that you can read that have been posted by people using it as their go-to gimbal of choice.

User Interface And Control System

In our opinion, Snoppa has absolutely nailed the control interface on the Atom as shown in the image above. Not only does it look slick but it is also extremely easy to use making it an ideal interface for a smartphone gimbal. The majority of people who are looking to purchase the Snoppa Atom will likely be first-time gimbal owners who want a simple gimbal to help improve the image quality of their smartphone footage.

The simplicity of the Atoms interface ensures that you can play with the gimbal for a few minutes and get the basics of it. This ensures that there is no need to invest hours into learning the system leaving you more free time to get out and capture the footage that you want to record. On the flip side of this though, if you are more of an advanced gimbal user then the advanced customization options are limited compared to what’s on offer from the Zhiyun Smooth 4.

All in all, we feel that Snoppa has done a great job and produced a solid little gimbal interface that we are confident that the majority of the target market will be able to get to grips with quickly. Unlike some of the competition, the system on the Atom is also very responsive even in wet or cold conditions helping it score even more points over other gimbals.

Smartphone App

Outside of the DJI, Zhiyun, and Moza smartphone apps, most other gimbal brands have left their apps to fall into what is essentially a state of disrepair. Thankfully, Snoppa seems to have taken a page out of DJIs book and set a goal of always having a solid smartphone app for their gimbal range available to their customers. The app has none of the syncing issues or problems with random disconnects that some other gimbals do while also having a solid, easy to use navigation menu.

Not, smartphone apps for smartphone gimbals have one main flaw as your smartphone tends to be mounted to your gimbal. This means that the wireless remote control functionality is limited as if you are close enough to your smartphone to use it, you are close enough to your gimbal to just do it manually.

In our opinion, one of the strongest features of the app is the quick and easy access to the Atoms settings. This helps it cover the main weakness of the physical interface for advanced users as it lets you tweak some settings as you see fit. As the app is free, we feel that it is well worth downloading to your phone and can be a solid little gimbal accessory.

Build Quality And Design

Snoppa has done a great job of ensuring that the Atom is as small, lightweight, and robust as possible without having to hike the price tag of the gimbal up. This is very hard to do, even in this day and age where there are a bunch of lightweight and robust alloys and polymers available for construction. Even more established gimbal brands like Evo and Feiyutech are struggling to keep their gimbals robust enough to stay competitive while also keeping their weight down.

If you are planning on using your smartphone and Snoppa Atom for capturing footage for travel vlogging or any other activity where you will be traveling around via air a whole bunch then its lightweight and small size are great. This helps to ensure that your gimbal does not knock you over your baggage allowance or take up much space while packing.

Another solid feature with the Atoms build quality is how comfortable its handle is. We have to keep repeating ourselves over and over again as many people we see reaching out overlook the importance of a comfortable handle on their gimbals. If you are working in a niche where you may have to hold your gimbal for hours at a time then the comfort level of the handle is important and Snoppa have managed to nail it.

When it comes to the design of the gimbal it pretty much sticks to the regular handheld gimbal design for smartphones. In all fairness to Snoppa though, there’s not really much you are able to do to innovate the design at this stage as the standard design works so well. This is the same across all gimbal manufacturers too with most brands just using a variation of the same design.

Our Verdict

That brings us to the end of our Snoppa Atom review and as we said at the start of the article, until the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 came along, we feel that the Snoppa Atom was probably the best smartphone gimbal around. That said, the Atom can still hold its own and its customer base is still steadily growing without any sign of slowing down.

If you are yet to make your mind up about the Snoppa Atom then there are also a large number of third-party reviews from independent smartphone videographers sharing their opinion. If you do have some free time then check out some of those reviews as they offer a great insight into the performance of the gimbal as well as how other people feel about it too.