Reviews |Gudsen Moza Mini-S review

Gudsen Moza Mini-S review

Gudsen Moza Mini-S review
Review

What is the Gudsen Moza Mini-S?

The Moza Mini-S is a 3-axis gimbal stabiliser for your smartphone. It features a foldable design that makes it more compact and easier to store than other smartphone gimbals and can be used with both iPhones and Android devices.

The Moza Mini-S is priced at £89 in the UK from retailers like Wex Photo Video or $79 in the US from B&H Photo Video.

 

Features

The Gudsen Moza Mini-S can support a maximum payload of 260g and phones ranging from 58-88mm wide, which makes it suitable just about any smartphone.

When folded down it measures 5.12 inches wide by 2.68 inches deep and 7.68 inches high. To put this into perspective, when folded down the Moza Mini-S is only slightly longer than your smartphone itself.

The Moza Mini-S three-axis gimbal provides 270° of pan, 200° of tilt and 315° of roll, as well as focus control, one-button zoom and quick playback control.

Object Tracking lets you follow moving subjects, and among the shooting modes are Hyperlapse, Slow Motion, Vertigo, Inception, Timelapse and Sport Gear.

Inside the Moza Mini-S is a 2200 mAh battery that provides eight hours’ use on a single charge. It charges via USB-C in an hour and a half.

The Moza Mini-S also supports Bluetooth to connect to your phone and access its controls using the MOZA Genie app. Alternatively, you can use the phone camera control cable that comes in the box.

The Gudsen Moza Mini-S is available in two colours: black and white.

Gudsen Moza Mini-S review: build quality

Build Quality

The Moza Mini-S is made of plastic, which I must admit wasn’t too reassuring when I took it out of the box. Tap it, and you hear that kind of hollow sound that makes you think the plastic isn’t very thick, either.

Because of this I had concerns about its foldable design and rigidness of parts involved in that operation. Those concerns were quickly put to rest though. The Moza Mini-S’ unique design is quick and easy to unfold.

First, pull down the switch that locks it in place (see above). Then, loosening the smartphone cradle which grips the handle of the unit, pivot cradle away to one side and you can then rotate the top arm down. Next simply rotate the main arm clockwise and everything snaps into place.

Folding it back down is simply the reversal of this process: rotate the main arm counter-clockwise and reattach the cradle around the base.

Gudsen Moza Mini-S review: build quality

Another nice design touch is the phone cradle, which you can switch from landscape to portrait mode, which you can do by holding the handle and rotating the phone 90 degrees clockwise (to go to vertical mode) or counterclockwise (to go back to horizontal).

Though it is plastic, the grip feels pretty solid. I gave it a good squeeze, and nothing moves or rattles. Another nice feature in the design is a 10-degree tilt in the Moza Mini-S’ handle makes it a little more comfortable to hold for longer periods.

On the front of Mini-S grip are your joystick for moving the gimbal, the Operation and Playback buttons, Photo button in the centre and the battery level indicator. On the sides are your focus controls, Power button, gimbal lock and charging port. And on the back is the trigger.

All the buttons are plastic, but they’re firmly in place and click reassuringly when pressed. The joystick in particular I found very responsive and easy to use. It’s a nice addition that many other smartphone gimbals don’t have.

 

Gudsen Moza Mini-S review: performance

Performance

Unlike the manual for its older sibling, the Moza Air 2, the Moza Mini-S instruction manual is very simple and lays out the operations in a colour-coded, straightforward manner. A quick read before I set out, and I was ready to go.

Mounting your smartphone is easy (always do it with the gimbal’s power turned off!). Simply pry the cradle apart, slot your phone in, and it grips the smartphone tightly and securely.

The joystick is very intuitive and you’ll pick up its operation fairly quickly. The trigger has multiple purposes. Double-pressing it will re-centre the gimbal. Pressing once and holding it switches the Moza Mini-S to tilt follow mode and double-pressing and holding switches to all locked.

Pressing the down button two and three times cycles between Sports Gear and Inception modes, respectively. You can set the roll follow function by pressing the left button.

The centre button starts and stops recording in video mode, and pressing it twice takes still photos. Press the right button twice to start and stop Timelapse mode.

There are more modes and button combinations spelled out in the instruction manual. There’s even a handy Professional Mode that allows you to adjust exposure settings. You can enable this within the function menu and an icon will appear on the side display.

Overall I found the Moza Mini-S simple to use and quick to set up. The gimbal provides smooth, stable footage in a range of conditions. I took it on a walk in the forest, which you can see above, and ran down a steep hill while filming. I was incredibly surprised by how stable the footage was put to this extreme test. Later on I climbed a waterfall with it (and back down again), with equally impressive results. While you can spot a few moments of bobbing in my footage, on the whole it performs admirably.

The shooting modes and responsiveness also impress. And while I don’t know how often I would use shooting modes like Inception, Gudsen has provided a whole host of fun and practical features that really enable you to not only get creative with your smartphone videography, but create professional looking footage.

Verdict

The Gudsen Moza Mini-S packs a wealth of sophisticated features for a gimbal at its price point. And while you could knock its plastic build as a negative, this is what keeps the Moza Mini-S below the £100/$100 benchmark and allows Gudsen to provide all that impressive functionality.

Its unique, foldable design makes it perfect for carrying with you as you go about your day, meaning you can pull it out at those opportune moments and turn a shaky memory into something a little more refined.

When you consider other smartphone stabilizers in this price bracket, such as the Sirui unit I reviewed recently, the Moza Mini-S is light years ahead in terms of spec, design and capability. You won’t be disappointed if you buy the Moza Mini-S.