360 Camera Reviews

Xiaomi Mi Sphere 360 first impressions II: unboxing, sample video, stabilization

In this post, I continue my first impressions of the Xiaomi Mijia Mi Sphere 360 camera.  This time, I’ll present an unboxing a sample 360 video, and a demo of the Mi Sphere’s realtime stabilization!

First, here is an unboxing video:

Now here is a sample 360 video from the Mi Sphere.  For this video, I stabilized the Mi Sphere using the Guru 360 gimbal. I did not edit the sound so you can hear the audio recording quality from the Mi Sphere.  Please note that the Guru 360’s motor emits an audible sound, which can be heard in the video.

I think the video looks very detailed (sufficiently so that even though its 3.5K video resolution is technically lower than 4K, it looks at least as detailed as 4K videos from competing cameras).  One issue is that there is a slight difference in color between the front and rear lenses.  I don’t know if Xiaomi will address this issue.  Another issue is that the audio is slightly out of sync with the video.

In the meantime, I also found out that the Mi Sphere 360 really does have image stabilization, and it seems to work as smoothly as, if not better than, the Insta360 Nano and Insta360 Air stabilization. However, I have not yet figured out how to save this stabilized video (I only used a screen capture utility to show a thumbnail).

If the stabilization really does work and you can export a stabilized video, that would put the Mi Sphere 360 far ahead of its competition IMHO.

WHERE TO BUY
The Mi Sphere is available from GearBest.  There’s currently a sale.  You way want to get it before the sale ends!

About the author

Mic Ty

7 Comments

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  • Impressive ratio quality/price!
    Video quality really detailed. I am seriously near to buy.
    Is it possible to add a spacer between the camera and the gimbal to have a less introusive nadir?
    About the gimbal, I am undecided if buying the cheaper guru360 or directy the guru360 air which will be good also with heavier cameras (interesting a side by side comparation).

  • Do you think quality wise the video from this would sit well with 1080p as I am likely to work any footage from a 360 camera into an overall video mixed in from my main camera (canon SX60HS) so would want the resulting quality to look even. Given this cameras current price and your favorable early review am quite interested in it! Any helpful comments appreciated.

  • I wonder how you did so fantastic resolution…? I can export video in app, but it creates immersive video with resolution 1920×960 only.
    I don’t know how you can upload so great resolution and quality..?

    • Hi Max. My Samsung S6 has the same issue. To export at full resolution on Android, Xiaomi needs a Snapdragon 650 or higher processor (some have been able to do it with Snapdragon 625). Here is a list of phones that have worked: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kszKqmxBLwHUQ7dd-ytQ51auFoLFFv4i8o1lVE6clG8/edit?usp=sharing
      For slower processors, you can set the video resolution to 2304 x 1152. It will look a little better than 1920 x 960. The other solution is to get a phone with more powerful processor to process the Xiaomi photos. For example, you can get a used Samsung S7 for under $250 from eBay if it has a crack on the back or something. Or you can try a phone with a Snapdragon 625 processor, although I can’t guarantee it will export at full resolution

      • I’m using Galaxy S6 and Galaxy A5 2017 – S6 crashes always while exporting at 0%, and A5 can export 1920×960 only. I’ll try Galaxy Note4, which is older. Thank you for your help and list of phones.

      • On Galaxy Note4 app is exporting video, but only @ 1440×720. Warning message: Your device is not supporting HD video…