Among the most popular content on the web we find vlogs, or videos in which we usually tell what we did during the day or talk about the most disparate topics.
Making content of this type is apparently simple: you just have to “point your face” at the smartphone camera and discuss the plus and minus. In fact, to emerge among the myriad of channels present on the various platforms, it can be useful to buy the right equipment. We are not talking about expensive cameras, but about a gimbal, a “support” for the smartphone that allows you to better stabilize the videos, avoiding graylings.
Put simply, using a good accessory of this type you can make your videos much more enjoyable without being experts and without using uncomfortable tripods. In the past few weeks we have got to try the FeiyuTech VLOG Pocket, a 3-axis gimbal that has made a lot of talk after a “trailer” published on YouTube, which at the time of writing has about 200,000 views. Let’s see together how the product behaved, which is sold at a price of 89 euros on Gearbest (which become 63.39 € by applying the GBFEIYU3B discount code).
Features and user experience
The sales package includes, in addition of course to the gimbal, a standard USB / microUSB cable for charging, a convenient “base” to be used to place the device on the ground (making it a sort of “tripod”), the instruction manual ( in English, but easy to understand) and a soft carrying bag. In short, we are faced with a good endowment, which contains everything you need. Surely you can’t ask for much more at this price, given the cost of competitor products.
The main material used to make the gimbal is obviously plastic, which is however of good quality and has never given us negative feelings during use. On the front we find the button to activate Follow Mode or to reset, while on the rear there are two buttons for switching the gimbal on / off, for managing the positioning of the smartphone (e.g. portrait or landscape) and for shoot / start video recording. There is also a standard microUSB port for charging.
The smartphone is fixed using a classic “spring” system, therefore the VLOG Pocket easily supports mobile devices of various sizes (the manufacturer recommends using smartphones with a thickness between 42 and 88 mm). Obviously there is no shortage of wheels and mechanisms to unlock / lock the three axes. The dimensions of the gimbal are equal to 108.61 x 55.56 x 145.62 mm when “closed”, while when open it reaches 66.76 x 90.96 x 242.08 mm. The weight is 272 grams.
The first thing we advise you to do once you have taken the gimbal out of the box is to install theFeiyu ON application, freely downloadable from both the Play Store and the App Store. The app is very basic and allows you to activate all the features you expect from a product of this type, from timelapse to hyperlapse, passing through facial tracking through artificial intelligence. For more details on all the possibilities offered by the gimbal, we refer you to its official website, where you will also find video tutorials that indicate how to use all the features.
The latter are also present within the app itself and are rather quick and convenient to follow. It should be noted that to use Feiyu ON you need to enter your e-mail address and enable geolocation. The supported Bluetooth technology is 4.1, so we are not exactly talking about the best coverage, but on the other hand we have never encountered problems from this point of view.
FeiyuTech VLOG Pocket allows a Tilt of 240 degrees, a Roll of 165 degrees and a Pan of 330 degrees. To change the mode, just press the main button on the handle twice: in this way the smartphone will switch to landscape or return to vertical.
We used this gimbal mainly in tandem with the Google Pixel 4 XL and Realme 5 smartphones. In particular, being the latter a low-end device, it does not have a good stabilization by default and was therefore ideal for understanding how much this gimbal is able to improve the final result. Well, the stabilization offered by FeiyuTech VLOG Pocket has pleasantly impressed us, since the typical flickering scenes disappear completely. Obviously the result is not the best using such a device, but if you really want to take a brief look at one of our “stress tests”, you can do it through this video (it is precisely in these borderline cases that you understand how far a product like that can go).
Surely we are not at the level of the most expensive gimbal, but we can promote the product for the price range in which it is configured and for the users it is aimed at (i.e. those who want to vlog). In this regard, the mode that detects the face through artificial intelligence has always worked perfectly during our tests and therefore you can rest assured if you are interested in this aspect of the product.
Not bad autonomy, which the manufacturer claims to be of 8 hours of use (1300 mAh battery). During our tests we were able to see a slightly lower result, but in general we feel like confirming what was stated by FeiyuTech. A full charge of the device takes about two hours with a common 5V / 2A charger. Too bad for the lack of IP68 certification for resistance to liquids and dust, but on the other hand in this price range it is impossible to find a device that has this feature.
