DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro Review

Verdict

The DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro might not blow rivals away on the spec front, but execution-wise it’s a fantastic action camera that puts a fat tick in all the most important boxes while being lighter, cheaper and more waterproof than its GoPro and Insta360 equivalents.

The low-light shooting isn’t as great as I was hoping, but it’s still better than most action cameras, while the long battery life and bright OLED screens are welcome improvements.

Introduction

The Osmo Action 5 Pro is DJI’s latest flagship action camera, taking the template laid down by the Osmo Action 4 and improving on it in almost every way.

The sensor size, video resolution and frame rates might be unchanged but, with a new sensor design, new processing chip, new screens, better waterproofing, better wireless connectivity and a generous amount of built-in storage space, it’s not hard to find the upgrades.

A more pertinent question, perhaps, is how does the Osmo Action 5 Pro match up against its contemporaries like the GoPro Hero 13 Black and Insta360 Ace Pro? It’s cheaper than both, but notably lacking in the video resolution department. Does that matter? Let’s dive in and find out.

Design and Handling

• 145g weight and 70.5 x 44.2 x 32.8mm size
• Waterproof to 20m without additional case
• 1.46-inch front and 2.5-inch rear screen

Like all the best action cameras, the Osmo Action 5 Pro is small and lightweight – all the better to be mounted in tight spots like on your bike’s handlebars, the front of a surfboard or on top of your head. Technically it’s slightly lighter than the latest GoPro and Insta360 rivals, but not to the point where that can be framed as a major selling point – they’re all lightweight and small.

For mounting purposes, the Osmo Action 5 Pro retains the magnet- and clip-based quick-release system used by the Action 4. In conjunction with the included Horizontal-Vertical Protective Frame, the setup allows you to swiftly switch between landscape (for standard videos) and portrait orientation (for 9:16 TikTok-style videos) on a whole series of mounts.

The mounting clips provided in the box allow you to connect the camera to pretty much anything a GoPro could be mounted on. In fact, you can use GoPro-branded mounts if you want.

The Osmo Action 5 Pro is appropriately rugged, with a boxy design that removes all protrusions, protects moving parts against dust and water ingress and covers its screens and the lens in tempered glass. The Horizontal-Vertical Protective Frame armours the camera against impact without adding much to the size or weight.

You can drop it, freeze it or dunk it in water and the Osmo Action 5 Pro won’t stop going. In fact, even without a separate dive case it’s able to go underwater all the way to a depth of 20m, 2m deeper than the Osmo Action 4 and a full 10m deeper than the Insta360 Ace Pro and GoPro Hero 12 or 13 Black.

The control setup is simple. One button on top stops and starts video recording (or takes a photo in photo mode). Another, on the side, powers the camera on and off when held down, or can be tapped to switch between the QuickShot modes. By default, these are the standard video and photo modes, but you can add your favourites if you’d like more.

Other settings are accessed via the front and rear touchscreens, which have been given an OLED glow-up. Now brighter with more vibrant colours, these touchscreens are small but remain nicely usable thanks to the clear icon layout. You can quickly access and adjust any setting with a few swipes and taps.

For remote, wireless control, there’s also the option of using your smartphone and the Mimo app. The app and camera pair and re-pair very quickly and easily and Mimo offers easy access to all the controls.

This includes the ability to compose and review images and video on your phone’s screen, import the camera’s content wirelessly (and at up to 80MB/s, thanks to new Wi-Fi 6.0 compatibility) for sharing and editing as well as some unique functions like live-streaming. It’s a great little app overall, but controlling the camera with just the onboard physical and touchscreen controls is also a pleasant and smooth experience.

Performance and Features

• 1950mAh battery
• Two levels of image stabilisation plus horizon levelling
• Pair with DJI Mic 2 for 48kHz/16-bit Bluetooth audio

DJI states that the Osmo Action 5 Pro can record video continuously for up to four hours on a fully charged battery. Big claims, but having tested it myself I can say it’s true – albeit with the camera set to 1080/30p video quality. At 4K/60p, it’s more like two hours, which still isn’t bad, and crucially it won’t overheat when recording long clips at this quality either.

Charging is one of the functions handled by the USB-C 3.0 socket, which also performs file transfer and plug-and-play webcam duties when hooked up to a computer. 

The Osmo Action 5 Pro features Rocksteady 3.0 electronic image stabilisation, which is available at two levels, both of which apply a slight crop to the image and support video up to 4K/120p. I found both very effective and impressive, whether I was walking around for a vlog or barrelling along a bumpy road on my bike. Check out the embedded video sample clip further down to see RockSteady in action.

For those looking for more control over how the stabilisation is applied, the camera can also embed non-stabilised video files with data from its built-in gyroscope sensor, which enables software stabilisation in post. I found this also very effective, using the free GyroFlow plugin for DaVinci Resolve 18 to quickly and (largely) effortlessly stabilise previously shaky footage.

Another stabilisation option with lots of appeal for extreme sportspeople is HorizonSteady, which can keep the horizon vertically level at up to 360º, albeit with video resolution at no more than 1080p. If you’re using 4K/60p, you’re limited to Horizon Balancing, which corrects tilts of up to 45º.

The camera comes with a solid range of shooting modes besides standard video and photo capture: the SuperNight low-light video mode (which I’ll get into in the next section of the review), slow motion, timelapse, hyperlapse and a new subject tracking video mode that automatically tracks, frames and crops a human subject for 9:16 video, even with them moving around in the frame. If you’re creating TikToks, YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels and want to get properly formatted videos of yourself performing sporting feats fast, you might find some use for it. 

Finally, one of my favourite features is the ability to pair the camera wirelessly with one or two DJI Mic 2 lavalier microphone transmitters. This delivers excellent 16-bit 48kHz audio via Bluetooth – something the Mic 2 won’t do with other brands’ action cameras (where audio quality is limited to 16kHz, where it works at all). I used it a lot during the review process and unsurprisingly found the audio quality much better than the Action 5 Pro’s built-in mic, particularly in windy conditions.

Video and Photo Quality

• Video up to 4K/120p or 1080/240p
• 10-bit Standard, HLG and D-Log M picture profiles
• 40MP still photos

The sensor on the Osmo Action 5 Pro is 1/1.3”, which is the same size as the sensor on the Action 4. It’s not the same sensor though, and now offers a wider dynamic range (of up to 13.5 stops, according to DJI) than its predecessor.

Overall image quality is strong in daylight conditions, and users have the option to shoot in 8-bit or 10-bit, with Hybrid Log Gamma and D-Log M colour profiles available to anyone who wants the option to colour grade in post-production.

DJI has limited the video bitrate to 100Mbps, likely as a way to extend battery life and keep file sizes more manageable, and this has already upset some potential buyers – perhaps understandably given the Action 4 could use a bitrate of up to 130Mbps. It’s not yet clear whether or not DJI intends to allow higher bitrate use via a future firmware update, but I can understand the criticisms: after all, letting users have the choice feels like the best of both worlds.

What I will say is that I found the image quality to be generally excellent, albeit with some noticeable fall-off in detail in low light and during fast motion. Action cameras are generally weak in low light situations due to their small sensors, but DJI makes a big show of its sensor performance in this precise condition and even offers the SuperNight mode, which it claims delivers a much clearer video image at night. While the SuperNight image isn’t terrible, and in fact good by action cam standards, it’s not as transformative as I’d hoped: there’s still plenty of noise and smearing in unlit areas. Still lots of room for improvement here, in other words.

DJI has left 4K as the highest resolution available, which I think is fine – particularly as it can record at up to 120fps. The Insta360 Ace Pro allows 8K recording and the GoPro Hero 13 Black 5.3K, but few people own the displays to make the most of these resolutions. I suppose a case could be made that they support cropping to a greater degree than the Osmo Action 5 Pro, but I never found it to be lacking in detail when the lighting was adequate.

Photos are, well, fine. I always think that if you’re doing still photography on an action camera, you’re doing it wrong – but the 8MP and 40MP shots are acceptable in a pinch.

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