THE PLAN

With North American borders reopening in the fall of 2021, I will go on a 2-month outdoor adventure road trip, travelling 15,000km by van from Canada into Mexico.

I will create a daily YouTube vlog series that will capture the entire experience with clips of the drive, mountain biking, mountain climbing, hiking, natural wonders and archaeological sites, the people and towns/villages along the way, and selfies as I share my feelings about the experience.

I will use the new Feiyu Pocket 2S as my camera, filming the entire video series using it and upon completion, update this review page with the results.

So, stay tuned! Check back soon. For now, I've listed some of the early information released about the Feiyu Pocket 2S.

Who is FeiyuTech?

FeiyuTech is a well-known camera & accessories manufacturer located in Guilin, China, which was established in 2007. A group of engineers found the company; it is one of the longest-established manufacturers in the stabilizer/gimbal industry and is recognized as a gimbal pioneer. In 2013 they succeeded in developing the first 3-axis handheld gimbal, "G3", for action cameras. FeiyuTech gimbals took 70% of the global GoPro handheld gimbal market in the recent years.

Feiyu Pocket 2S: What is it?

The new Feiyu Pocket 2S features 4K video recording at 60fps and a 130 degree ultra wide-angle lens packaged in a camera head that is detachable and can be connected to a dedicated mount like on a helmet or even magnetically attached to a metal surface like a car roof, eliminating the need for many specific attachment accessories. This allows it to act both as a handheld gimbal or a wearable action camera. The connection between the stabilized camera, and the body is guaranteed by a 90cm cord which also allow the camera head to be mounted on an extension rod while the body and screen remain nearby for monitoring of the scenes framing. It has a three-axis brushless gimbal that should provide smooth image stabilization and can be controlled via a 5-way joystick.

It has smart functions, including Intelligent Beauty, Face Tracking, Trail Time-lapse, Panorama, and Hyper-lapse modes. The FeiyuCam App can seamlessly connect to both the Pocket 2S via wi-fi for additional functions and more precise control.

Feiyu Pocket 2S's unique wearable design provides 3 tracking modes. Setting it according to the scene to achieve optimal performance , such as "Fast follow" mode if you want to increase the tracking speed, and "Riding" mode if you want to slow down.

Powered by the industry-leading 1.55μm 1/2.3" SONY IMX577 Image Sensor /1.62μm IMX317 Image Sensor & ARM Cortex-A7 Processor with the clarity of 4-layer Glass & 3-layer Resin Lens, Pocket 2S delivers unparalleled colors, details, and clarity. Choose between Super Wide/Wide/Narrow Angle to get the original or Distortion Corrected shots.

A 1.3" touch-screen allows for image and settings monitoring of the two gimbals right from the device itself. It also features a built-in microphone and includes support for an external microphone using a dedicated accessory and has an HDMI interface.

Feiyu Pocket 2S: key features

• 4K 60fps
• Bitrate: 120Mbps
• 130 degree ultra wide-angle lens
• Three-axis brushless gimbal
• Detachable and wearable camera
• 1.3" touchscreen
• Intelligent and Breakpoint Shooting functions
• Compatible with FeiyuCam App
• Built-in speaker and external microphone compatibility
• HDMI interface
• 1/4"-20 thread at the bottom
• 3-hour battery life
• Weight: 179g

Conclusions and Verdict

Until I've used Feiyu Pocket 2S long term on my project, I can't make my final review and verdict. However, I can look at the specification on paper and the capabilities in theory and say that it stands equal to competing products while offering some very significant advantages. The first is the detachable gimbal head, which gives flexibility to mount it on many surfaces, from a pole jib to the outside of a car to a helmet. Further, this capability gives the secondary benefit of still allowing you to view the screen to see your framing of the shot because you can hold the body. Another issue that plagues these devices that it should overcome is audio quality. With the gimbal detached, you will be able to hold or clip the body containing the microphone close to your mouth or sound source and approach or equal the quality of audio that other products can only achieve by using an external lavalier microphone. Next, some other product's companion apps suffer compatibilities with Android phones, making them unusable for many people, which does not look to be the case with the Feiyu's Pocket 2S. And finally, the Pocket 2S seems to have the most capabilities packed directly into the stock device. Other products require more add-on accessories to achieve the same capabilities. These are all significant advantages that could likely raise the Feiyu Pocket 2S to the top product in this space. Based on this, I will initially rate it highly at 4.5 out of 5.