Moza Mini-S Gimbal Review

Moza Mini-S Gimbal Review

Following my review of the DJI Osmo Mobile 3, a few of readers notified me that i used to be wrong to call it the primary foldable gimbal. And indeed, i noticed the foldable Moza Mini S and Snoppa Atom had somehow slipped under my radar.

I’ve had experience using Gudson Moza camera equipment before, including the Moza Air 2 DSLR gimbal and Moza Mini-MI smartphone gimbal. they are doing a wonderfully good job of stabilizing video, but tend to lack the finesse and build quality found in DJI and Zhiyun gimbals. So does the Moza Mini S buckle the trend or is it another gimbal that falls in need of the competition?

Price

Moza typically price their gimbals aggressively, and within the case of the Mini-S they’ve really taken things to subsequent level. At $79.99, it’s one among the most cost effective gimbals I’ve ever reviewed.

It’s no secret that gimbal prices are coming down (just 3 years ago and you’d be paying in more than $300), but $79.99 for a gimbal with a powerful set of features came as a true surprise.

First Impressions

Out of the rather unremarkable box, the Moza Mini-S did not impress me with its plasticky build.

Phone gimbals are nearly always made up of plastic, but the Mini-S felt extra cheap, partly due to the hollow hand grip which looked able to split open at any moment. (I have a sense the hollow hand grip may be a results of the protoype’s built-in selfie stick which mysteriously went missing).

The absence of a rubber grip and therefore the fairly large and ugly “Mini-S” branding down the side of the grip means Moza once more lack the category that DJI and Zhiyun gimbals have.

Features

The standout feature of the Mini-S is clearly its ability to fold up. Folded up, it's only 5.12 inches wide, 2.68 inches deep and seven .68 inches high.

To put things into perspective, your average non-foldable smartphone gimbal are over twice as long as an iPhone XS Max. By comparison, the folded Mini S is merely an in. and a half longer than the XS Max. The gimbal arm also packs in nicely and isn’t left flailing around. This makes it much easier to suit into alittle bag or backpack.

Other than that its features are fairly standard. A joystick to electronically pan and tilt the camera, various other controls (including focus control and a multi-function rear trigger) and a quarter-inch mounting hole. Moza also went with the newest USB-C standard for the Mini-S.

Although at CES the Mini-S prototype featured a selfie-stick built-in (much just like the Feiyu Vimble), the discharge version of the Mini-S doesn't have one. it might have definitely been a pleasant touch and something to differentiate itself from the competition, but my guess is that it compromised the resilience of the gimbal an excessive amount of (the last item you would like is your phone dropping into the ocean due to a snapping selfie stick).

Gimbal Modes

The Moza Mini-S has 6 recording modes:

• Pan Following
• Tilt Following
• FPV Mode
• All-Locked
• Sport Gear mode
• Inception mode

The first 4 are all standard gimbal modes, but a number of you're probably wondering what the ‘Sport Gear’ and ‘Inception’ modes are.

The sport gear mode simply maxes out the speed of the motors, meaning it follows panning movements much faster. If you would like pan and follow fast paced objects, sort of a car blazing past you on the track, this is often the mode you’ll want to use.

Moving on, the inception mode allows the camera to rotate 360° on the roll axis as it’s moving forward or backwards. It’s a reasonably cool sort of shot, although you’ll very rarely end up using it.

Compatibility

The Mini-S has good compatibility with iPhone and Android devices, which may be mounted by simply pulling apart the spring loaded clamps and sliding them in.

Its max supported payload of 260g is impressive, beating out the likes of the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 and Zhiyun Smooth 4. The clamp can accommodate any phone with a width starting from 55-88m, so it can handle larger phones just like the iPhone 8 Plus and Huawei P10 Plus.

Moza Genie App

The Moza Genie companion app allows you to pair the gimbal to your phone over Bluetooth and perform things like advanced calibration also as take panoramas, hyperlapses and more.

Despite Moza being one among the larger players within the gimbal market, the Genie app feels unpolished. While the iOS app is usually free from issues, the Android version has various issues with zooming, object tracking and infrequently crashes unexpectedly.

There’s always the choice of simply using the default camera apps or an honest third-party photo/video app like Filmic Pro, but it might be nice if Moza released an honest companion app to start with.

Moza Mini-S VS DJI Osmo Mobile 3

It makes perfect sense to match these two iPhone/Android gimbals because they're the 2 best-selling folding gimbals on the market immediately .

Although the Moza Mini-S is cheaper, after using the Mini-S I noticed there have been variety of things the Osmo Mobile 3 simply did better.

First, the L-shaped arm on the Osmo Mobile 3 is purposefully angled in order that the rear motor won’t get within the frame when shooting. On the Moza Mini-S, the motor came into the frame once I used my Xiaomi Mi 9.

Second, switching between portrait and landscape mode requires you to physically flip the mount, whereas on the Osmo Mobile 3 it's an easy case of double tapping the M button.

There’s also an enormous difference in battery life, with the 2450mAh battery within the Osmo Mobile 3 lasting up to fifteen hours, compared to the 5 hours you get with the battery within the Mini-S.

Although stabilization performance is nearly equal, there’s nothing the Moza Mini-S really does better than the Osmo Mobile 3, so it’s an easy question of cost versus better quality and more features.

Verdict

Pros

• Folding design
• Good stabilization performance
• Price
• Cons

Corns

• Cheap build quality
• Buggy Android app
• Short battery life

My review might sound somewhat harsh towards the Moza Mini-S. And to be honest, I’ve been a touch unfair because there's little question that this is often an excellent gimbal. it's objectively better than the likes of the older DJI Osmo Mobile 2 which i used to be filled with praise of back at its release.

However, the newest DJI Osmo Mobile 3 really spoiled me, and compared thereto the Mini-S simply isn’t nearly as good .

For $79.99 the Mini-S is not any doubt a terrific bargain, and deserve a spot in my list of the simplest gimbals for smartphones. However its poor build quality, buggy app and short battery life make it difficult to depend upon for more serious mobile filmmakers.

Rating: 4/5