DJI is taking another swing at the action camera market with the Action 2 ($399 and up), its follow-up to the Osmo Action from 2019. Where the Osmo was pretty much a GoPro clone, the Action 2 rethinks the form factor. The camera itself is square, with a lens on the front and a screen on the back, and uses powerful magnets to connect to accessories and mounts. It’s an intriguing camera that pushes the design envelope, but it isn’t without some drawbacks, as it puts out enough heat to limit use for long-form recording, and it’s easy to imagine losing track of one of its small components. We continue to recommend the GoPro Hero10 Black as our Editors’ Choice winner, but the Action 2 is a quirky, capable alternative.
Magnetic, Modular, and Square
The Action 2 pares the action camera to its very basics. The main module is a tiny square, about 1.5 by 1.5 by 0.9 inches (HWD) in size and weighing around 2 ounces. It ships with a sidecar module, identical in size, that snaps onto its bottom, just about doubling its width and weight.
There are two kits available. The Action 2 Power Combo is the more affordable at $399, and includes an add-on Power Module pack to extend battery life. It’s set to arrive in stores in mid-November. The battery pack houses a USB-C charging port and a microSD card slot, but isn’t waterproof like the camera itself.
The second kit, the Dual-Screen Combo, is coming a little earlier, launching on November 2. Its add-on module also includes a battery reserve, USB-C, and a microSD slot, and adds a front-facing touch LCD and three additional microphones. At $519 it’s a more expensive proposition, but one we expect vloggers will go for.
You have the option of buying either battery pack or front-facing screen à la carte, in case you lose one, or feel the need to have both on hand. The Power Module costs $75 on its own and the Front Touchscreen Module is $169. The Action 2 camera itself is not sold separately.
The innovation here isn’t just the form factor—the GoPro Hero Session was famously square, though its screen-free design made it less functional than the Action 2. It’s DJI’s magnetic mount that really sets the Action apart. The camera itself is magnetic and snaps right onto ferrous objects—I tried it with my car’s hood, the tins I use to store coffee beans, and the side of my fridge.
Now, the magnets aren’t up for action—I was able to get the camera to fall from the bottom of my coffee containers with just a little bit of shaking, so I wasn’t about to take it out on the open road on the hood of a CR-V. But the magnets are handy for putting the camera in interesting places, and I love the convenience for moving it on and off a compact tripod.
The included lanyard makes the Action a wearable camera too, one you can use without a chest harness or similarly convoluted contraption. I tried it out, but wearable lifelogging is just something that I don’t get. My chest mounted footage was steady enough—DJI’s digital stabilization is extremely effective—but the horizon was fairly skewed. If you’re just shopping for a wearable camera, you can get away with spending less on the Insta360 Go 2, available for $299.
Accessory Options
There are some basic accessories included with both kits. You get two camera mounts, one that’s compatible with GoPro mounts and a second with a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread and ball head. The magnetic lanyard, a wearable necklace for chest-mounted footage, and a USB-A-to-USB-C charging cable round out the included accessories.
If you want anything else, it’ll cost extra. A waterproof case is required if you want to take the camera deep; it’s rated to nearly 200 feet (60m). The case costs $65 and also fits the front screen or battery add-on. There’s a selfie stick with a Bluetooth remote for $75, a floating handle for $39, and a magnetic headband for $35, among other options. With GoPro and standard tripod mounts in the box, you’ll be able to use most standard photo, action cam, or video mounting accessories as well.
I’m a fan of the macro lens accessory, a $79 close-up optic that snaps right on the front with magnets. It swaps the focus from the distant range—action cams are made to keep everything that’s more than a few inches away from the lens in clear view. With the macro lens the focus range is limited to close, so you’ll want to shove the camera right up against what you’re trying to photograph or film. Macro shots aren’t an option with GoPros and other competitors, so take note of the Action 2 if you’re interested in close-up photography and video.
Touch Controls
The Action 2 has a two-button design, one on the main camera and another on the add-on module, but both serve the exact same function. A long press turns the camera on or off, and a short tap starts and stops videos, or snaps a photo.
That leaves the small touch screen as your main control surface. It’s about 2 inches diagonal, and proves to be just a little tricky for my less-than-dexterous fingers to navigate without care. But with proper finger placement, and DJI’s choice to use big icons to swap settings, it’s not bad.
Swipe from the left to browse media, from the right to change exposure settings, from the bottom for resolution and frame rate options, and from the top for the full menu. The only really tricky part is swapping modes. You’ll swipe to the left or right to change between photo, video, timelapse, quick clip, and slow motion, but you need to make sure you start the swipe from the middle of the screen.
Voice commands work, too. The camera responded as expected to “Record,” “Stop Recording,” “Take a Photo”, and “Shut Down.” The function can be turned off, and it’s not a bad idea to do so if you’re using it in chatty environments. I had the Action next to me while watching TV and it started rolling video as Mayim Bialik introduced the categories during a recent episode of Jeopardy. GoPro also supports voice commands and the experience is similar—it works, but an offhand remark can trigger recording.
Full control is also available via a smartphone app, DJI Mimo, available for Android and iOS devices. I tested the camera with a beta version for iOS (we received the Action 2 prior to its on-sale date for evaluation, but the official version should be on app stores in short order). It works as expected, presenting a live feed from the Action 2’s lens on your phone screen. It’s not an elegant solution for handheld work—I prefer the camera’s small, but functional, touch screen there—but is handy if you’ve got the Action set up on a tripod or have it mounted.
As for modes, photo, video, and slow-motion video are self-explanatory. The quick clip is useful for social media, recording a 15-second bite-size video. Timelapse is a standard feature, but I do like that DJI has included presets for crowds, clouds, and sunsets—all show how long the camera records and how long the final movie will be. For Hyperlapse, the term for timelapse with camera movement, you can let the camera decide how much to compress time, or select manually from 2x, 5x, 10x, 15x, and 30x speed-up options.
The Action 2 also works as a USB webcam, so you can use it for conference calls or to livestream your vlog. The camera prompts you to choose from file transfer or webcam modes when you plug it into a computer.
Battery Life and Continuous Recording
The Action 2 camera module has its own battery, but it’s fairly underpowered—it’s only good for about 17 minutes of 4K60 record time. The front-facing display and battery pack both have their own power cells for extended record times. The display module adds about 49 minutes, for a total of 68 minutes of recording. The battery pack goes a little longer, adding 66 minutes for total 83-minute record time.
Compare this with the GoPro Hero10 Black, which runs for about 45 minutes at its highest 5.3K60 resolution, and for a similar time at 4K60, around an hour. Our GoPro tests were done with its standard battery; the company just released an extended-life battery for the Hero10, the Enduro, but we’ve not yet had a chance to test it.
Overheating is an issue with long-form recording, especially with small cameras. The DJI Action 2 isn’t immune, and struggles with heat. Our battery life rundown tests were done piecemeal, simply because I couldn’t get the camera to keep going for longer than 15 minutes without shutting down due to heat. We ran into a similar issue when testing the Hero10, but it went longer (35 minutes continuous) in the same room temperature testing conditions.
If long-form recording is something you care about, there are some ways to sidestep heat. Using a lower resolution and frame rate, mounting the camera so that it’s cooled by air motion (our tests are done on a tripod in a home environment), and turning off stabilization for tripod work will help keep the temperature low, and running the camera off USB-C power instead of battery is a good trick to remember. If extended recording in an action cam form factor is a must-have, the Hero10 Black is a better prospect; it’s getting a firmware update this month to add video modes.
Video and Imaging
The Action 2’s imaging and video chops are strong. It has some real advantages over the Hero10 Black for extreme sports fans and vloggers alike, notably a wider angle lens backed by a larger format image sensor. It also does some things differently—the Action 2’s color is closer to reversal film than the warmer GoPro’s color negative look when we used them side by side under the light just after sunrise.
Count the color sensor, visible as a glossy circle near the edge of the Action 2’s lens, for part of that. It reads ambient light in a different way than the image sensor, for better automatic white balance and exposure.
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In-camera color options and video control are pretty limited, though, even when set to Pro mode. You can use DJI’s default color look, or go for D-Cinelike, a profile with lower contrast and color saturation, for a flat look. Shooting flat nets uninspiring footage without some color work, but if you’re well-versed in applying LUTs to video, you’ll have some room to give your footage a different look.
Still capture is available at 12MP resolution in JPG or Raw DNG format. The out-of-camera JPGs look just as good as the video, with vibrant colors and dynamic range that’s ample for tough scenes with mixed levels of light—sunrises are a good example. The photo below is right out of the Action 2 without edits.
Digital stabilization was in its infancy when the first Osmo Action came out, and DJI’s RockSteady stabilization fell just shy of what GoPro was doing with its Hero7 HyperSmooth at the time. A few years have passed and the latest models are on more even footing, with the Action 2’s RockSteady looking just as good as the Hero10 Black HyperSmooth in a side-by-side test. Both are good enough to let you leave your gimbal at home.
The angle of view between the two is more apparent. We recorded footage in the distortion-corrected linear view for both cameras, and the Action 2’s view is notably wider, showing more of the environment in walk-and-talk footage. The same is true for the uncorrected view—the Action 2 just sees a bit more of the world. GoPro owners who want to go wider have to add $99 for the Max lens add-on.
Audio is a mixed bag. The Action 2 itself has a single internal microphone; it picks up my voice clearly, but doesn’t do well with wind or background noise. The front-facing LCD adds another three mics, but still has issues with wind noise and loud background audio—my local trail is under the approach path for Newark Airport, and even with the front LCD, loud noises drown everything else out. If you have a better mic you can attach it via a USB-C adapter, or you can wait for DJI’s add-on microphone accessory, coming in December. Add-on mics are necessary to get quality audio out of most action cameras. The 360-degree GoPro Max is the exception—its mics are fantastic, and it includes a 16:9 recording mode.
A High Price for Innovation
DJI took some time with its Osmo Action follow-up, waiting two and a half years to roll out its sequel. It used that time for a ground-up redesign, and we’ll give credit to the functionality of the Action 2’s modular form factor. The tiny camera is able to squeeze into interesting places for creative shots, and the magnetic mount is convenient, though it falls shy of being game-changing—it doesn’t take a lot of effort to attach a mounting foot to a GoPro.
We like the wider angle of view offered by the Action 2—its lens covers more of the world than the Hero10 Black—and the quality of the 4K video that it captures. Stabilization is excellent, too, as good as the competition and really eliminates the need for a gimbal for vlogging. You’ll still want to attach a better mic for shots where audio matters, but that’s true of nearly every action cam.
But even with the upgrades from the Osmo Action, the Action 2 doesn’t quite manage to oust the GoPro Hero10 Black as our Editors’ Choice winner for action camera. Price is a big factor—both models are available for $399, but the GoPro provides 5.3K60 capture, an integrated front LCD, and a year’s worth of cloud video storage. When configured with its front-facing LCD, the Action 2 jumps to $519, which is a lot to ask for a small video camera, even one that’s more innovative than iterative.
