If you're looking to get started with 360-degree video, an inexpensive phone add-on is an attractive option. iPhone users can opt for the Insta360 Nano ($146.00 at Amazon) , but Android owners have an even more affordable option. The Insta360 Air costs just $129.99, is available for micro USB and USB-C handsets, and offers true plug-and-play operation. It relies on your phone for power and storage, so you don't have to worry about charging it, though it sucks battery life from your handset pretty quickly. It's not a product we'd recommend for serious videographers—the Nikon KeyMission 360 or the new Samsung Gear 360 are both better choices if you want to record in 4K—but for casual 360 capture and live broadcast, it's a solid accessory.

Design

The Air ( at Amazon) is a small sphere with two lenses and a USB port—micro USB or USB-C, depending on which version you buy. Its shell is plastic, with bulbous lenses protruding from opposite sides. The sphere is about 1.5 inches in diameter and weighs just under an ounce. A silicone carrying case is included.

Four color options are available. We received the black finish for review, but you can also opt for pink, white, or yellow. In addition to phones, you can use the camera with a computer as an external web cam. A rigid, adjustable USB cable is included so you can connect and position it to suit your environment.

The Air is a pure plug-and-play device. There's no internal memory or power, it relies on your Android phone to provide both. It also omits a microphone, using the one in your phone to pick up audio. That's actually a plus compared with the Insta360 Nano's internal mic—on a windy beach I was able to hear my voice much more clearly using the Air with the Samsung Galaxy S6, while the Nano's mic picked up overwhelming wind noise in similar conditions.

Because of its design, most Air owners are going to use it to capture video that includes themselves. There's nothing wrong with selfie videos per se, especially if you're trying to narrate and share an experience, but it can be limiting. You can certainly invest in a tripod mounting system for your smartphone, but if you're going to get that serious, perhaps consider a standalone model instead.

Software Support

The Air works with Android devices running version 5.1 (Lollipop) and above. The Insta360 Air app is a free download from Google Play. It opens with a splash screen showing a gallery of content shot with the Air, with a camera icon in the bottom right corner.

Clicking the camera icon takes you to the camera control screen. You'll see the view from the dual lenses live on your phone's screen, and you can scroll around, snap photos or video clips, and stream live to Facebook and YouTube. Converting video for upload requires about two minutes for every minute of footage.

The app works well, and includes Instagram-style filters that can be applied to video or images. There's even a Sketch filter that makes all of your 360 content look like an a-ha music video. I do have one complaint—the app is upside-down by default, which makes sense when recording video with the camera plugged into the USB port. You can dive into settings to flip it back to a normal orientation so you can hold your phone normally when trimming or sharing clips. But I'd love for the switch to be seamless based on how you're holding your phone.

The Air draws power from your phone. One one hand, it's convenient not to have to charge it separately. But boy is it power-hungry. I started with a fully charged phone, streamed a couple minutes of test footage to Facebook, and converted a couple of short clips to MP4 so I could embed them in this review. Within 20 minutes of having the camera connected to my Galaxy S6, I saw the battery drop from 100 percent to 50 percent. The phone also runs quite hot when using the camera.

Video and Image Quality

The top standalone 360 cameras record video in 4K quality. That's not the case with the Air. When video is stitched together its resolution is 1,920 by 960 at 30 frames per second, fewer pixels than flat 1080p footage. When you consider that those pixels are being stretched out and mapped on a virtual sphere, it's not surprising that footage is very noticeably soft. Fine details are washed away no matter the lighting, making even close-up subjects look blurry. Distant subjects, a challenge for high-resolution cameras of this type to display in detail, don't fare any better.

Stitching holds up pretty well, as long as you don't pan down to look for the phone and the hands holding it. But that's typical for a 360-degree camera. Even with the bright sun dominating the view of one lens, I found that exposure was well balanced. I couldn't locate a visible seam in the sky above the camera, which is often the case when exposure varies slightly between the two lenses.

Streaming live to a service—Facebook and YouTube are supported—nets video that looks even softer. Footage is heavily compressed to 2Mbps, compared with recorded video which is saved at 8.4Mbps. The resulting video is rife with artifacts and blur. Yes, it's live streaming 360-degree footage, which is cool, but don't expect it to look great.

Still images are captured at 4.5MP (3,008 by 1,504) and fare just a little bit better than video. Image quality isn't on the same level as a modern smartphone. It's closer to what you'd get with an older model, like an iPhone 3GS, with an overly waxy look and lack of details. There simply aren't a lot of pixels to handle being stretched to a spherical view.

Conclusions

The Insta360 Air isn't going to give you the best quality 360-degree video footage. But that's not why it exists. It's a budget offering, costing hundreds of dollars less than top-tier models like the Nikon KeyMission 360 ($485.00 at Amazon) , and delivers performance in line with its price. If you're an Android owner and want to see what all the hubbub is about spherical video, but you don't want to spend more money on a camera with serious capabilities, the Air is a solid purchase.

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