Personally, I can’t think about utilizing my smartphone as a child steadicam anymore now that I’ve DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 — we noticed it in every single place at CES 2025, and its one-inch-type sensor presents picture high quality past what right now’s smartphones permit.
However should you like the thought of sticking your cellphone right into a set of stabilized motors on a stick, DJI’s just-announced $149 Osmo Cell 7 Professional is probably the most feature-packed spin on the thought I’ve ever touched.
Now you possibly can plop your selfie-stick down onto a floor with a brand new built-in tripod, pull eight inches of telescoping arm out of the highest to present it attain, then snap on a brand new “Multifunctional Module” with a built-in pc imaginative and prescient digicam to mechanically monitor you, begin and cease filming, and modify framing, simply by gesturing together with your fingers.
The Multifunctional Module unlocks different neat methods too: it’s acquired a built-in fill gentle with adjustable shade temperature you could activate by holding down the OM7 Professional’s facet dial, and it’s a receiver for DJI’s wonderful wi-fi microphones, together with the DJI Mic Mini. It will get wirelessly powered proper by means of DJI’s smartphone clamp due to a set of spring-loaded pogo pins, and you may connect it dealing with both path if you’d like the help on your cellphone’s selfie digicam.
Maybe most significantly, the module might dramatically scale back your want to make use of DJI’s app for filming. Earlier gimbals required it for monitoring, however traditionally it’s not all the time performed good with the latest digicam options that smartphone makers supply. Now you should use your cellphone’s built-in digicam app and nonetheless have it observe you autonomously. (DJI says its personal Mimo app does now play nicer with the multi-lens switching, 4K60 recording and digital picture stabilization on extra Android telephones, however it’s extra futureproof this fashion.)
The module’s monitoring undoubtedly works in my early exams, although the Multifunctional Module does get a bit scorching — because it warns proper on the module’s facet. It’s additionally a little bit of a battery drain. Whereas DJI has upsized the battery to 12.06 watt-hours and quotes an upgraded 10 hours of battery life, the module cuts it in half to 5 hours with monitoring, or 4 hours with monitoring and the fill gentle on. (The Osmo Cell 6’s 7.74Wh pack promised as much as 6.5 hours, for comparability.)
I additionally like that the Osmo Cell 7P nonetheless has a 1/4-inch tripod screw gap along with its built-in tripod, so you possibly can mount it to different issues, and you may nonetheless high up your cellphone from its USB-C port. I’m particularly happy to say that DJI will begin promoting a magnetic quick-release adapter so you possibly can plop telephones instantly onto the gimbal as a substitute of getting to stretch aside a clamp — although that adapter gained’t be suitable with the Multifunctional Module, and in contrast to that module, it gained’t typically come within the field.
So far as I’m involved, DJI’s personal Osmo Pocket 3 sucked the air out of the room for smartphone gimbals, besides in these instances the place it’s simpler to justify the $150 buy for an current cellphone as a substitute of dropping $520 for higher high quality or as a result of your iPhone workflow calls for it. However I’ve to confess I’m jealous of the Osmo Cell’s new methods. Perhaps DJI might make an Osmo Pocket 4 with a telescoping gimbal, pop-out tripod, and hand gestures?
The Pocket 3 ditched many of the Pocket and Pocket 2’s modular elements, proving that modularity wasn’t that product line’s actual superpower, and I don’t assume pocketability is essentially it both. I feel it’s having an ultra-steady digicam that’s higher and extra versatile than right now’s telephones whereas nonetheless becoming right into a shoulder bag, and I’d welcome much more of that versatility.
Along with the $149 Osmo Cell 7P, the corporate’s additionally asserting a brand new price range $89 Osmo Cell 7 that is available in white somewhat than black. It additionally has the pull-out tripod, however ditches the telescoping selfie-stick, doesn’t include the Multifunctional Module within the field, and doesn’t have the facet dial to simply activate the fill gentle and modify focus or zoom.
Each ought to be transport right now from DJI’s web site.
