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We’ve added the Insta360 Flow Pro as our new top pick and the Hohem iSteady V3 as an option for those who want a remote. ball head tripod
If you want to create smoother, less shaky, more professional-looking videos, a phone gimbal is the best, most cost-effective option.
A gimbal is a mechanical stabilizer that, through a combination of sensors and electric motors, keeps your phone steady regardless of how you move your hand, arm, or body. Modern gimbals even have apps that can track a subject, keeping you or someone else in frame—while you’re both moving—for a professional-looking shot.
Of all the gimbals we tested, the Insta360 Flow Pro was the easiest to use, had the best app, and reliably stabilized our video, emerging as the go-to choice for more cinematic smartphone shots.
A clever, compact design and a full-featured app combine to make this model the best gimbal for most people.
While larger and not as slick as our top pick, this gimbal works nearly as well and has a useful app.
This compact gimbal doesn’t have the range of motion of the Insta360 Flow Pro, but it comes with a wireless remote.
Using gyroscopes, gimbals counteract hand movement so your video turns out silky smooth, even when you’re walking.
Newer AI-enabled gimbals can automatically track moving subjects, including humans and pets.
Programmed modes make getting tricky shots, such as time-lapses and dolly zooms, easy enough for beginners.
Most gimbals have tripod feet, and some can also work as selfie sticks.
A clever, compact design and a full-featured app combine to make this model the best gimbal for most people.
The Insta360 Flow Pro is a compact and easy-to-use phone gimbal with a great mobile app. One of the Flow Pro’s best features is its diminutive size—it’s the smallest gimbal we’ve tested. But despite its compact stature, it has a huge battery, a built-in tripod, and three-axis stabilization, which keeps your camera as still as possible even if you’re running alongside kids playing or a dog with the zoomies.
The Flow Pro can extend over 8 inches to double as a selfie stick, and you can manually tilt the head to get better low- or high-angle shots.
Its large, 2,900 mAh battery should allow you to record all day and can charge your phone and other devices.
The Insta360 app (for iOS and Android) provides detailed tutorials to teach you all the many features of the gimbal and the app itself. It has extensive editing capabilities, too, so you can quickly trim, sequence, and post a social-media-worthy video. And the Flow Pro has Apple DockKit compatibility, so it can track a subject not just in Insta360’s app but also in Apple’s own camera app and some third-party apps.
It can pan a full 360 degrees, which is more than most small gimbals can do, but has a limited tilt range in comparison with larger, heavier gimbals like the Zhiyun Smooth Q4 and Smooth 5S AI.
While larger and not as slick as our top pick, this gimbal works nearly as well and has a useful app.
The Zhiyun Smooth Q4 isn’t as compact, stylish, or cleverly designed as the Insta360 Flow Pro, but it’s still a great gimbal at an affordable price. It feels a little cheaper overall compared with our other picks, and it lacks the handy removable phone clamp that our top pick offers.
Its ZY Cami app (iOS, Android) is very good, though a bit less polished than Insta360’s. Specifically, it isn’t quite as easy to use, and you can unlock some features only by paying a subscription fee.
For a little more money, the Zhiyun Smooth Q4 Combo includes a nice hard-shell case plus a clever removable and reversible LED fill light. The bundle is well worth the small price difference.
This compact gimbal doesn’t have the range of motion of the Insta360 Flow Pro, but it comes with a wireless remote.
The Hohem iSteady V3 has a lot of the features we like in our other picks, including a compact design that extends when needed, as well as a built-in tripod. It comes with a removable fill light that draws power from the gimbal and thus doesn’t need to be charged separately.
What the iSteady V3 offers that our other picks don’t is a removable remote control that has nearly all the gimbal’s buttons. This remote remains a part of the gimbal until you need it, popping out when you want to control things from a distance.
On the downside, it doesn’t have the 360-degree rotation of the Flow Pro, nor does its app have as many features. But its stabilization is effective, and its range of motion should be sufficient for most people.
I’m Wirecutter’s editor-at-large, a travel writer, and a photographer. In addition to reviewing cameras and other gear, I have a YouTube channel and am the author of Budget Travel for Dummies.
Today’s smartphone cameras can capture gorgeous 4K video, but even with the advent of more-effective in-camera stabilization, they’re still not capable of perfectly smooth footage. A gimbal—a pivoting suspension device that mechanically stabilizes a camera—can replace an expensive tripod or dolly and make cinematic video effects accessible to anyone.
Gimbals smooth out hand tremors or a bumpy gait if you’re filming while walking. They can also make camera pans look smooth and consistent or automate time-lapses and other tricky shots.
If you like filming video with your phone and don’t mind spending a bit to achieve more professional-looking results, a gimbal can be a good choice.
Android users and owners of older iPhones should take special care to check the compatibility of their phone with gimbals. We’ve seen phones that don’t fit in gimbal clamps, as well as gimbal apps that either don’t work with Android phones or limit the video quality at which you can shoot. For more on the phones that are compatible with our picks, see the lists from Insta360 (PDF), Zhiyun, and Hohem (PDF).
Keep in mind that, generally speaking, if your phone is newer than those listed on the above linked pages, it will probably work fine. For instance, Zhiyun and Hohem list the Google Pixel 6 but not the Pixel 7, despite the latter already being two years old; regardless, we haven’t encountered any problems with either gimbal or their apps using the Pixel 7.
If you have an uncommon phone (that is, one that isn’t from Apple, Google, Samsung, or another big manufacturer), and you don’t see your model listed, contact the gimbal company and see if it has tested that phone model for compatibility. We also recommend doing so if you have a large or particularly heavy phone, such as one that folds.
To find new and interesting gimbals, we researched both buyer reviews and professional reviews, and we checked the newest models that had replaced previous picks.
Here are some of the basic features that we think are important in a gimbal:
Our latest round of testing involved setting up and using all the gimbals, along with their apps, on both a Google Pixel 7 and an iPhone 14 Pro. Some aspects of performance that we tested included:
A clever, compact design and a full-featured app combine to make this model the best gimbal for most people.
The Insta360 Flow Pro is the easiest to use of the gimbals we’ve tested, and it produced extremely smooth video in all conditions. We also like its clever design, which includes a small, built-in tripod and the ability to extend the handle so that it doubles as a selfie stick. Perhaps best of all, the Flow Pro folds up smaller than other gimbals, so it’s easier to keep in a bag or purse.
Extensive tutorials help teach you how to use it. All gimbals have a learning curve, and the Flow Pro prompts you with an extensive tutorial when you first connect it to your phone. The tutorial goes through the various buttons and dials on the gimbal itself, as well as many of the features in the app.
It’s simple to set up. Insta360’s phone mount doesn’t require as precise a placement as some other gimbal mounts. The rubber grips hold your phone tightly, but not so much that you can’t reposition it. The mount is magnetic, snapping into place on the gimbal securely.
This makes the gimbal easier to use, as you can quickly remove your phone if you want to check a message or make a post, for example, without unclamping the mount. One pivot of the handle turns on the Flow Pro, and you’re ready to go.
In contrast, our picks from Zhiyun and Hohem require a more elaborate unfolding and mounting process. Even with those models, setup doesn’t take too long, but both are slower than this Insta360 model in that regard.
The telescoping handle extends smoothly, out to a maximum of 8.5 inches, when you need the gimbal to act as a selfie stick.
The battery should last all day. Insta360 claims that the 2,900 mAh battery is good for 10 hours of use, which is roughly middle of the pack in comparison with the longevity of the Flow Pro’s competitors. How long it lasts in the real world will depend on how you’re using it and the weight of your phone.
One neat bonus is that you can even use it like a USB battery pack if you want to charge your phone or a set of wireless earbuds.
The app makes shooting and editing simple. The Insta360 app is a big reason why the Flow Pro is such a joy to use. It’s intelligently laid out, and it has lots of tutorials and extensive editing features. After you record a video, you can add music or text, trim it for length, and more. The app works pretty much the same on both iOS and Android, the exception being that the app opens automatically when you connect the gimbal on iOS but not on Android.
But it’s important to note that while the Insta360 app has wider compatibility than most gimbal apps, it doesn’t support every phone (PDF), and even on supported phones, not every feature or resolution may be available.
Generally speaking, if your phone doesn’t appear in the compatibility list and is a newer model in a line that’s listed as compatible, it’s likely to be compatible as well (though that isn’t guaranteed). If you’re not sure whether your phone is supported, contact Insta360 directly for clarification.
Video footage is notably smooth. The videos we captured while using the Flow Pro were extremely smooth, even when we were walking or running. All of our picks did a good job of stabilizing video, so the differences weren’t huge. In some tests, such as when we jumped in place, the Flow Pro did a little better.
Its subject tracking is excellent. Dragging your finger across a person or object in the app’s live view selects it; the Flow Pro then keeps that selection in frame even if you move the phone and gimbal. Insta360 calls this feature Deep Track 3.0, and not only does it do a great job, but it’s also smart enough to reacquire the subject after losing track for a moment.
Say your subject ducks behind a wall and then returns a few seconds later—the app will usually continue tracking. In this situation, most competing apps we tested would lose track of the subject, requiring us to reselect it and potentially ruining the shot.
It’s compact and lightweight. The Flow Pro is the smallest gimbal we tested, taking up about 30% less total volume than the Zhiyun Smooth Q4 when folded. We easily fit the Flow Pro in a jeans pocket; in contrast, the Smooth Q4 fit but was uncomfortably bulky.
It’s Apple DockKit compatible. The main difference between the Flow Pro and the base Flow (our former top pick) is DockKit compatibility. This allows the Flow Pro to track a subject while using Apple’s camera app, not just the Insta360 app. As more apps are released with DockKit compatibility, the Flow Pro should work with those as well.
To take advantage of DockKit, you need to pair your iPhone (running iOS 17 or newer) to the Flow Pro using NFC. When we tested this with an iPhone 15 Pro Max, it took a little longer than we expected, but eventually they connected.
Although DockKit is useful in certain situations, currently it tracks only people in the iPhone camera app; Insta360’s own app also tracks objects and animals. That could change in the future, however.
At the moment, we don’t think DockKit compatibility is a feature worth paying for on its own, but since the Flow Pro costs only a few dollars more than the regular Flow, most people interested in content creation are likely to find such future-proofing worth the investment. The Flow Pro also has 360-degree panning, whereas the older Flow does not.
It has a one-year warranty. Insta360 covers the gimbal with a 12-month warranty, the same length of coverage as on our other picks.
While larger and not as slick as our top pick, this gimbal works nearly as well and has a useful app.
If you want to save a little money over our top pick, the Zhiyun Smooth Q4 is a great gimbal that works similarly well. It’s larger and not quite as easy to use as the Insta360 Flow Pro, and its app isn’t as slick, but it still does a great job of smoothing out footage.
It’s extendable, and it creates smooth videos. Like the Insta360 Flow Pro and the DJI Osmo Mobile 6, the Zhiyun Smooth Q4 has a built-in extendable selfie stick. It can extend out 8.5 inches, the same as our top pick.
This gimbal stabilizes footage about as effectively as our other two picks. No gimbal is perfect, but like our other picks, this model will help you capture videos that are far smoother than what you’d get when using the built-in image stabilization in most new phones.
It has a long battery life. Zhiyun claims that the 3,300 mAh battery has a run time of 15 hours. In practice, the run time will vary depending on how hard the gimbal’s motors actually have to work, but it should be similar to and perhaps a little longer than that of the Insta360 Flow Pro’s battery.
The app is good, if not as slick as our top pick’s. Zhiyun’s ZY Cami app (iOS, Android) offers most of the same features as Insta360’s app, including the ability to edit video (adding music, text, and so on). The free version of the app maxes out at 1080p output, but you can pay to unlock 4K capability; if you buy the Combo package (mentioned below), it comes with a one-year subscription to this service. The free version also places a watermark on exported videos, but you can disable that in the privacy menu.
Its subject tracking is okay but not as good as that of our other picks. We found that this model’s tracking got confused more easily than our top pick’s, losing lock or focusing on something different than we intended. It was more frustrating to use in comparison.
It’s compatible with lots of phones. The Smooth Q4 is compatible with most modern Apple and Android-powered phones. Zhiyun has a compatibility list on the Smooth Q4’s product page. The list is incomplete, though; we used a Google Pixel 7, which isn’t listed, for our testing, and it worked just fine.
It offers a great range of motion. Being a little bigger than the competition has its advantages: Zhiyun claims 338 degrees of tilt and roll range for the Smooth Q4, in contrast to 182 degrees of tilt and 330 degrees of roll for the Insta360 Flow Pro. In some situations—mainly those with extreme vertical transitions—this means that the Smooth Q4 will better maintain the shot framing.
It’s available with several accessories. The base Smooth Q4 comes with a removable tripod and a charging cable. For a little more money (an extra $20 at this writing), the Smooth Q4 Combo package adds a slick removable and reversible fill light, several cheap-feeling color filters with weak magnets that don’t attach securely to the light, a wrist strap, and a nice hard-shell carrying case. Unless you don’t think you’d use the light and already have another case for the gimbal, the Combo is a good deal.
It’s a bit bulky. This Zhiyun gimbal is bulkier than the Insta360 Flow Pro, both thicker and taller when folded. All of our picks are fairly small, but if you struggle to find space in your backpack, camera bag, or purse, note that the Smooth Q4 would take up more room than the Flow Pro. Whereas our top pick can fit well in a pants pocket, the Smooth Q4 is tall and bulky enough that you can’t miss that it’s there.
It’s not quite as quick to set up as the Insta360 Flow Pro. Our top pick is ready to go with a single twist, with your phone snapping on magnetically (assuming that the clamp is already attached). In contrast, the Smooth Q4 requires you to pull open the main arm, twist the secondary arm, unlock the mount, and then secure your phone into the spring-loaded mount clips.
It’s a multistep process that you need to repeat every time you use the gimbal. It isn’t a hassle or a particularly involved procedure, but it makes setup a lot slower than with the Flow Pro.
It has a one-year warranty. Like our top pick from Insta360, this Zhiyun gimbal comes with a 12-month warranty when you purchase it in the US.
This compact gimbal doesn’t have the range of motion of the Insta360 Flow Pro, but it comes with a wireless remote.
The Hohem iSteady V3 doesn’t have as wide of a range of motion as the Insta360 Flow Pro, nor does its app have as many features, but it offers something our other picks don’t: a removable remote control that’s capable of controlling the gimbal from up to 30 feet away.
It also has most of the features we like in our other picks, including the ability to extend for better reach, a built-in tripod, and a light.
The remote is a convenient addition. While gimbals are typically used handheld, some photo or video opportunities require you to go hands-free. This model’s removable remote lets you control the gimbal’s features from afar. That’s ideal for group shots you want to be in, videos you make while traveling alone, or any situation where the location or shot is even more interesting with everyone in it.
The app is helpful, though not as full-featured as others. The Hohem Joy app (iOS, Android) works well enough. It’s laid out well, and if your phone is compatible, it provides access to manual shooting settings such as ISO and shutter speed. It also comes with tutorial videos to help you learn all the features.
However, it doesn’t have the advanced editing features of the Insta360 app. For that kind of work, we recommend using a different app. As with any other gimbal app, there’s no guarantee that all of the features in this one will work with every phone. That said, we did our testing on a newer phone that was not on Hohem’s compatibility list (PDF), and it worked fine.
Its subject tracking is solid. Once you select a subject by dragging across it on your phone screen, the iSteady V3 does a good job of keeping it in frame. It doesn’t track quite as well as the Flow Pro, especially with things that aren’t human faces (like dogs), but most people will find it good enough for general-purpose shooting.
It includes a removable fill light. Unlike some of the other gimbals we tested, the iSteady V3 comes with a removable LED fill light. The light draws power from the gimbal’s battery, shortening its life by up to a few hours, depending on the brightness setting. It has three color-temperature modes, from cool to warm, to help you match whatever look you want in your video or photo. This light also includes a small camera to aid in the AI-based gesture controls.
It has AI features. Like seemingly every new tech product, this Hohem gimbal has artificial intelligence features. They are assisted by a small camera in the fill light. In this case, the AI helps deliver better tracking performance and the ability to recognize your hand gestures for taking a photo, turning the tracking on or off, or changing from landscape to portrait mode without touching the gimbal or your phone.
We found the accuracy of these hand gestures to be inconsistent enough that we wouldn’t use them regularly. Instead, we’d opt for the remote, which always worked.
The tracking performance with the AI camera was better than what the app could do on its own, but it was more limited since it would generally track only the person that made the start-tracking gesture.
Its battery life is generally a little better than our top pick’s. The iSteady V3 has a 1,700 mAh battery, which is smaller than those in our other picks. However, Hohem claims that you can expect about 13 hours of use before it needs a recharge, which is in the same ballpark as the battery life of our other recommendations. Note that if you use the AI tracking and fill light, that figure may drop to as low as four hours.
However, the actual amount of time any gimbal’s battery lasts will vary depending on how you use it and how heavy your phone is. Typically, you should be able to get a full day’s use out of the iSteady V3.
It has a somewhat limited range of motion. The iSteady V3 can pan 310 degrees (50 degrees less than the Insta360 Flow Pro) and roll 330 degrees (matching the Flow Pro). Its tilt performance is much worse, at just 80 degrees versus the Insta360 gimbal’s 182 degrees.
The warranty is standard. Hohem offers a 12-month warranty against manufacturing defects.
The clamp is attached to the gimbal. Unlike the Flow Pro, the iSteady V3 has its phone clamp attached to the gimbal. This means that installing or removing your phone from its grip is a two-handed operation.
The Flow Pro’s magnetic mount is generally more convenient, since you can just leave the clamp attached to your phone, and in any situation where you want to use your phone without the gimbal, it’s easy to remove.
If you want a gimbal with greater range and more manual features: The Zhiyun Smooth 5S AI is a souped-up option with lots of controls and a more challenging learning curve than what you get with the Insta360 Flow Pro, but it might be a better choice if you’re seeking to make even more professional-looking videos.
It’s much larger than our picks and doesn’t extend, and to switch between portrait and landscape, you have to physically rotate the non-removable mount 90 degrees and readjust your phone. However, this model has more buttons, a large zoom and focus wheel, and a built-in forward-facing fill light, so more advanced users can more easily get complex shots and angles.
And due to its larger size, it has a notably wide range of motion: Its impressive 349 degrees of tilt, for example, is far more than the smaller Insta360 Flow Pro’s 182 degrees. It can also do a full 360-degree pan, like the Insta360 gimbal can.
The Zhiyun Smooth 5S AI Combo comes with a small “magnetic AI tracker” that mounts to the hot shoe either above or below the phone clamp. This adds extra hand-gesture controls (beyond just being able to start and stop recording), as well as slightly more accurate tracking. The step-up Smooth 5S AI Pro adds a removable and reversible fill light, filters for said light, and a large hard-shell case. Overall, the Smooth 5S AI is a more serious, “prosumer” gimbal, though the AI aspect is largely irrelevant. We’ve previously recommended the Zhiyun Smooth 5S (no AI); if you see that model for a discounted price, we still think it’s a good buy.
If you want a do-it-all device with even better stabilization: Consider picking up a 360-degree camera. The best of these cameras offer even smoother motion than a gimbal can provide, and you can use their apps to crop spherical footage down to a smooth 16:9 video.
These cameras offer the bonus of “magically” removing the selfie stick from your video, so it looks as if you have a drone following you. Going this route costs you more than buying a gimbal alone, but it could be worth the investment for the right situation.
This is not a comprehensive list of all the gimbals we’ve tested. We have removed models that have been discontinued or no longer meet our testing criteria.
The DJI Osmo Mobile 6 is a well-designed gimbal with an ergonomically pleasing grip and well-placed buttons. It was a previous pick and performed similarly to our former top pick, the Insta360 Flow. The main issue with the Osmo Mobile 6 is not the gimbal itself but the app, which is unavailable on the Google Play store. As a result, Android users must go to DJI’s website to download the app and disable protections on their phone to allow installation of outside apps. This is not ideal, to put it mildly. In light of that issue, plus some other Android-compatibility problems, we recommend the Osmo Mobile 6 only to iPhone owners who want a more ergonomic alternative to the Insta360 Flow.
The Insta360 Flow was our former top pick. It’s still available for roughly the same price as the Flow Pro, our new top pick. The two models are almost identical, but the Flow has a slightly longer claimed battery life, while the Flow Pro has a greater range of motion and additional features that make it the better option for most people.
This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.
Geoffrey Morrison is Wirecutter’s former AV editor, current editor-at-large, and a travel writer and photographer. He covers action cameras, gimbals, travel backpacks, and other gear. He has been to all 50 states and 60 countries, and he is the author of Budget Travel for Dummies and the sci-fi novel Undersea.
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