Insta360 has announced the next version of its compact Go action camera, which helped the company differentiate itself from established competitors like GoPro several years ago. As Insta360 teased earlier this week, the new Go Ultra not only breaks from the numbered naming convention of previous iterations, but it also ditches the camera’s distinctive pill shape for a rounded square design with an offset lens.
It’s not the steepest price increase for the Go series – the Go 2 launched at $299 while the Go 3, which introduced a charging remote with a screen, was $380 – but the new Insta360 Go Ultra is $50 more expensive than last year’s Go 3S at $449.99. It’s available now in midnight black or arctic white through the company’s online store and Amazon, or as part of a $499.99 Creator Bundle that includes accessories like a mini tripod and a quick release mount.
The Insta360 Go Ultra measures 1.8 inches on each side, while the pill-shaped Go 3S was slightly longer but a bit narrower. The new model is also almost 14 grams heavier than the Go 3S (not counting its screen-equipped Action Pod accessory that adds another 109 grams), but the Go Ultra is still a much smaller action camera than alternatives like the DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro and even Insta360’s own Ace Pro 2.
It features a new 1/1.28-inch sensor that’s considerably larger than what the Go 3S uses (and the same size as the sensor in Insta360’s X5 360-degree action cam), which, alongside a new ambient light sensor, should help improve the look of footage captured in low-light situations. The Go Ultra’s video capabilities still max out at 4K, but at 60fps, which is double the maximum frame rate of the Go 3S. Reducing the frame rate to 4K/30fps enables an “Active HDR” mode, while dropping the resolution to 1080p boosts frame rates to 240fps for capturing slo-mo footage.
Even with the lens located in the corner, the Go Ultra’s square design could make it a little more challenging to determine when the camera is capturing footage in landscape versus portrait orientations. The previous pill shape made that a lot easier. But the new design has room for a much larger 500mAh battery that Insta360 says is good for up to 70 minutes of recording or up to 200 minutes when paired with the Action Pod, but at 1080p/24fps and the screen off. At 4K/60fps recording times on a full charge will potentially be shorter than that.
Instead of built-in storage, the Go Ultra now features a memory card slot supporting microSD cards up to 2TB in size, so you can swap in replacements as they fill up. It’s also still waterproof to depths of up to 33 feet. Accessories include an upgraded magnetic pendant for wearing the camera at chest level and a hat clip designed for toddlers, but the back of the Go Ultra is also magnetic, which means it can be mounted directly to many metallic surfaces.