I tested the Osmo Mobile 8, and it’s the most creator-friendly gimbal yet

The DJI Osmo Mobile 8 is a smartphone gimbal that offers a full 360° horizontal pan rotation and is now entering the seventh generation of three-axis mechanical stabilisation. This enables a cinematic effect from your mobile phone footage.

The gimbal has been designed to work with the best iPhone and Android smartphones and even adds Apple DockKit tracking for the iPhone, and ActiveTrack 7.0.1 via the DJI Mimo app. What’s more, with the small light module having a built-in AI camera, you can also utilise hand gestures to start and stop tracking.

There are plenty of new features that have been built in, and through the Mimo, you can opt to track various types of subjects, including pets, people, cats, dogs, and really any object. This frame, during the action, can be selected from within the Mimo on both Android and Apple phones.

Mechanically, as well as three-axis stabilisation, the gimbal is well designed. With a detachable mechanical phone clasp, there’s plenty of flexibility over the phone size that it can hold. On the back of the holder, there are four contact points that enable data communication between the light and AI camera module, which simply magnetise into place. The main body of the gimbal, as we’ve seen from previous iterations, is designed to pack down nice and tight so that it can easily slip into a side pocket without taking up too much weight or bulk. The design simply unfolds and has an automatic switch-on feature so that once it’s all assembled, you can very quickly start shooting.

The handle grip is nice and simple, and if you just want simplicity, then the joystick enables you to rotate and adjust the tilt of the camera, whilst the orientation button enables you to quickly flip from portrait to landscape. The mode button adjusts the type of tracking that you can enable. What’s great about this new iteration of the Osmo Mobile is that with the AI camera module attached, you can quite literally start and stop tracking just with simple hand gestures in front of the camera, giving you a complete hands-free setup without the need to enter the Mimo app or even have it installed on your phone.

This means that if you’re out and about with other people, then they too can utilise the full power of this mobile gimbal without any requirement for additional software or setup.

However, if you do connect with the Mimo app, you unlock the full potential, including the ability to adjust settings and use all the templates and other functions and features that are accessible.

As this is now the eighth iteration of this highly popular mobile gimbal, it really has started to become very refined with a comfortable handle, easy-to-use setup and the more advanced features such as being able to connect the DJI Mic 3, 2 or Mini in a fully integrated and seamless way.

As soon as you take the DJI Osmo Mobile 8 out of the package, you see that it has quite a redesign over the previous iteration. Whilst it’s not overly different, the ergonomics, notably the grip, have been updated and make it far easier to get low-angle shots than the previous iteration.

Having used this now for well over a month, I can also say it is comfortable to use, but if anything, the grip when held right-handed does seem to be a little small, and the joystick, for my hands at least, is just slightly in the wrong position.

The design once again follows the fold-up mechanics. Once you fold open the top gimbal and place your phone into the magnetic clamp, you’re pretty much set to go. You can then pull the tripod legs out of the base, fold them down and place the gimbal on a work surface, ready for calibration. Once ready, all you need to do is push the power button, and the DJI Osmo springs to life. Then it’s just a case of pushing the rotation button to switch from portrait to landscape and the mode button to switch between different tracking modes. If you’ve set up the Mimo app, then you also have the red record button, which will instantly start/stop recording on your mobile phone.

Next to this is a small LCD display showing what function is operating, along with battery life, which lasts up to about 10 hours. Through this test, I tended to put it on charge after using it, and it lasted a good day of events without too many issues. Throughout full use of the gimbal, I never once ran out of battery power.

Just by this small screen, there’s the joystick enabling you to track around manually, and there’s also the focus wheel to the left.

When it comes to the build, once again, you see the telescopic selfie pole built in. If you pull the gimbal up, a short extension is revealed, and you can also tilt the camera at the top, making it far easier to get low-angle selfie shots or higher-angle shots, depending on what you’re shooting.

For me, the biggest change and advantage of using this latest iteration, and if I were looking to buy a gimbal at the moment, the reason I’d focus on this particular model, is the full 360° horizontal pan. This means that if you place it on a table and start tracking, you can walk 360° around the gimbal, and it will continue to track you. It’s a really nice feature. What’s more, the AI tracking camera also features a relatively bright LED, so if you’re doing any work in front of the camera, especially in the lower light of an event, you have that light to fall back on as well.

When it comes to building and handling, the AI camera really impresses me. The fact that, with your hand gestures, such as palm, V, or double L, you can quickly record, track, or frame your shots without ever needing to touch the gimbal or camera is particularly useful.

When I first picked up the DJI Osmo Mobile, I was impressed by its pure simplicity. Now, on its eighth generation, there are more functions and features that I keep discovering. Every time I go back to the manual to check a fact, I find another feature I haven’t yet explored.

Stripping it back to the basics, it is just a very competent gimbal. If you want to film an event or party, the fact that you can simply clamp your phone into the holder, power it up, and you’re set to go makes it especially easy to use. Then, as you start to boost functionality with the AI tracking camera and the hand gestures, it becomes a far easier device for content creation. With the extension pole and the ability to quickly wire in the DJI Mic 2/3/Mini, you get an extremely powerful video setup in a compact form.

As ever, using the iPhone 15 Pro as my smartphone of choice and switching over to cinematic in the video options, I was instantly impressed with the smoothness of the footage. It was just easy to use straight out of the box. With the joystick enabling easy angle adjustment and the extension pole having that tilt function, I could get exactly the positioning and angle I wanted. One of the big issues when filming on a mobile phone is that those wider-angle lenses can really distort your face.

However, having that little bit of extra distance and being able to use a slightly longer focal length on the lens gave a more complementary aesthetic and reduced the distortion that having a phone so close to your face can cause.

Then, having the DJI Mic 3 plugged into the base of my iPhone 15 Pro for audio and the transmitting mic made a quick and easy way to boost audio quality. While the light on the AI camera was relatively okay, as with all small lights, it adds its own style to your footage. I found that when taken down to half brightness, it provided quite a good natural illumination to the face.

Using the DJI Osmo Mobile 8, what most impressed me was the AI tracking, but I have to say the smoothness of motion was exceptionally good.

The tracking, of course, on the iPhone fully integrates with the Apple DockKit automation, so it uses Apple’s own technology rather than relying on the Mimo app. This greatly enhances the gimbal’s usability and enables you to use the tracking technology with a wide array of other apps, meaning you don’t have to stay within the Mimo app. In this review, I found I could use it with Blackmagic Camera or solely with Apple’s own camera app. This made a huge difference to its functionality, usability, and, most importantly, the speed at which I could fire up the app and start filming.

While I felt the grip handle was still a little bit small, it was comfortable enough. I did find that, in order to use the joystick, I had to adopt a slightly odd grip to position my thumb correctly; otherwise, the natural fall of my thumb landed on the joint rather than the pad itself. However, my index finger sat comfortably over the trigger, so while I found the gimbal generally comfortable to hold, it was probably designed for someone with slightly smaller hands than mine.

The grip has obviously been designed for right-handed users, but surprisingly, when I swapped it over to my left hand and adjusted the grip position, I found it more comfortable. The joystick sat in the perfect position, as did the focus control wheel, although I didn’t have quite as secure a grip as I did when using it right-handed.

For me, when using mobile gimbal stabilisers, I usually couple them with something like the Blackmagic Camera app or just a standard iPhone camera for simplicity. However, it is well worth dipping into the Mimo app, as it enables you to activate all the Bluetooth options and settings so you can remotely control features such as zoom and record/stop, which does make the recording process much easier. With all the Mimo templates, you also have a wide variety of expansion options for your creative video shoots.

As it is, this is the most involved Osmo Mobile yet. If you want to create any type of video content, for fun, online, or business, but don’t want to invest in a huge amount of kit, and you need it to be simple to use, then this is an excellent option. When you pair it with the DJI Mic system, you instantly have a very small and very powerful production rig.

This is one of the smallest and easiest-to-use mobile video systems out there. It’s small, lightweight, and the fact that you utilise your smartphone as the camera means all the kit you need should always be with you.

The one issue, however, probably comes down to your smartphone rather than the DJI Osmo Mobile. Especially if you’re using an iPhone with external storage, I quickly tested this out with a Lexar portable Go system, and the Osmo Mobile 8 was more than powerful enough to handle that small additional weight. The issue is that if you do need to plug in the mic as well, then you have to choose between storage and the mic going into that single USB-C port at the base of your smartphone.

The quality of the stabilisation through that mechanical system is superb. Compared to the electronic stabilisation we see on most action cameras these days, you’re getting full-resolution footage, there’s no cropping due to electronic gimbal stabilisation correction, which means ultimately you get a much better visual result.

The tracking speed is also exceptionally good. With that AI tracking camera module and LED light included, it adds another layer of versatility and advanced control. What I really like is the full 360° rotation. So if you’re live streaming and just want a camera that is nice and flexible, then this is now an excellent option.

The Mimo app is really one of those features you can take or leave. What I found during testing was that I would occasionally dip into it, be impressed by its functions and features, then forget about it until the next time. If you’re new to using a handheld gimbal, then it’s especially good. However, if you’re a little more experienced, then you probably already have your own workflow. The fact that the Osmo Mobile 8 is so flexible means it integrates easily with pretty much any system you want.

One other point I should’ve mentioned in the build section is that underneath the small built-in tripod, there is a quarter-inch thread. So if you want to mount this with a larger rig or even a tripod, then that too is perfectly possible.

Once again, DJI has upgraded the mobile gimbal stabiliser. With the DJI Osmo Mobile 8, it is now the best mobile gimbal of its type. With the AI tracking, extension pole, and other features that you can unlock through the Mimo app, you now have one of the most powerful compact video production tools on the market.