GoPro MAX2 Review — 8K 360 at 5m, and Five Specs GoPro Does Not Publish

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The GoPro MAX2 is GoPro's 360 camera: 8K30 in 360, 4K60 from a single lens, 29MP 360 stills and a 5 m depth rating, at $299.99 on promotion (list $499.99, checked 28 September 2026). It is the right buy for someone who edits on a phone and wants 8K out of it the same day, and the wrong buy for anyone whose camera will spend its life in the sea.

On 28 September 2026 GoPro's own US store and B&H both had the MAX2 at $299.99 on a "Save $200" promotion against its $499.99 list price, with no end date shown. B&H was already running it on 3 September 2026, so it has lasted most of a month, but it is still a promotion and will end. This page gives both figures and compares like with like: the promotional price against rivals' current prices, and the list price for when the promotion stops. While it runs, the value case is stronger for GoPro, not weaker.

The short version: the MAX2 beats the Insta360 X6 on price by $400 while the promotion runs and by $200 at list, and beats every Insta360 camera on mobile workflow outright, because GoPro Quik exports True 8K from a phone and the Insta360 App does not. It matches the Insta360 X5 on 360 video resolution. It loses on depth — 5 m against 15 m and 20 m — and on 360 stills.

It also loses on something that is not a spec at all. GoPro does not publish the MAX2's sensor size, aperture, weight, screen size or rated battery runtime. Four of those have retailer figures, labelled as such every time they appear here. The fifth has no figure anywhere. Insta360 has gaps of its own, and those are on this page too.

At a glance

The six specs that decide this purchase, against the three 360 cameras a MAX2 buyer will actually weigh it against. Where a manufacturer publishes no figure, the cell says so — Insta360's included.

MAX2 is level with the X5 on 360 video, and on price it is the cheapest camera in the table while its promotion runs: $400 under the X6 and $250 under the X5 ($200 and $50 at list). It trails on depth, stills and both disclosure rows. The X5 has a blank in the brightness row too, and the table shows it.

First Impressions: What the Object Is, and What the Spec Sheet Leaves Out

On paper the MAX2 is a two-lens 360 camera recording 8K30 in 360, and 4K60 when one lens is used as a conventional wide camera. It has a 1.82-inch screen, a 1960 mAh Enduro battery, a 5 m depth rating and GoPro's HyperSmooth stabilisation.

Here is the honest opening, and it belongs here rather than in the spec table: not all of that is GoPro's. The 1.82-inch screen size is a retailer figure. So is the sensor, given by retailers as two 1/2.3" sensors. So is the f/1.8 aperture, and so is the 195 g weight. GoPro's own spec material publishes the depth rating, the resolutions and the battery capacity, and stops there. The operating temperature appears in the manual and nowhere else.

That shapes the rest of this review. Comparing the MAX2's 195 g with the Insta360 X5's 200 g or the X6's 196 g means comparing a retailer's number with a manufacturer's. On weight it barely matters — the three figures are within a few grams of each other. On sensor size, where retailers put the MAX2 at 1/2.3" against the X5's published 1/1.28" and the X6's published 1/1.1", it matters more, and I would rather tell you where the number came from than let it pass as settled.

Stabilisation is HyperSmooth. GoPro publishes the name and no version number. 360 Horizon Lock is Insta360's feature and does not apply here.

Check the GoPro MAX2 price on Amazon →

Resolution: Level at 8K30, Behind on Stills

Resolution goes first because it is where the MAX2 is genuinely strong.

8K30 in 360 is the same headline figure as the Insta360 X5, and as the Insta360 X4 and Insta360 X4 Air below it. 4K60 single-lens is level with all three. If you shoot 360 video and reframe it to a flat clip, the MAX2 starts from the same resolution as the camera most people mean when they say "an Insta360". On this criterion it is not the budget option; it is at parity.

highlight At 8K30 the MAX2 ties the Insta360 X5. The gap opens on frame rate at the top of the market, and on stills.

Two cameras go further. The Insta360 X6 and the DJI Osmo 360 both record 8K50, and the Osmo 360 does it with a published 1/1.1" sensor and 120MP stills. Said plainly: on resolution, DJI's camera out-resolves GoPro's. The separate point is about availability, not image quality — DJI's US store lists the Osmo 360 at $549.99 but it is out of stock in every combo. B&H has it at $466.99 on promotion (list $549.99, checked 28 September 2026).

There is now also a DJI Osmo 360 II, launched in China on 13 August 2026 and globally on 3 September 2026. DJI claims native 8K60 and 14.5 stops for it. It has no US price, no US release date, and is absent from DJI's US lineup. Those are launch claims, not spec-table figures.

Stills are where the MAX2 falls clearly behind, on a figure GoPro does publish: 29MP in 360, against the X5's 72MP and 120MP from both the X6 and the Osmo 360. The X5 has roughly 2.5× the MAX2's pixel count in a 360 still; the X6 more than four times. If you shoot 360 stills — property, virtual tours, a record of a place rather than a clip of a moment — that row decides the purchase before any other. For 360 video, it does not.

Where GoPro Wins: Price and Mobile Workflow

This is the section where GoPro wins, and the page says so without qualification.

Price. The MAX2 is $299.99 on promotion (list $499.99) at GoPro and B&H; the Insta360 X6 is $699.99 with no promotion (both checked 28 September 2026). That is $400 less while the promotion runs and $200 less at list, for a camera that matches the X5's 8K30 and gives up the X6's 8K50. Against the X5 there is no longer a question of which price to use: the X5's Labor Day promotion has ended, and at $549.99 it costs $250 more than the MAX2's promotional price and $50 more than its list. The one thing to watch is the end of GoPro's promotion. No end date is shown; when it ends, the X6 gap narrows to $200 and the X5 gap to $50; the MAX2 is still cheaper than both.

Mobile workflow. This is the bigger win. GoPro Quik exports True 8K for the MAX2 from a phone. The Insta360 App can edit 8K footage but cannot export 8K on mobile at all: 8K and 11K exports require Insta360 Studio on a desktop. Quik is free to download, with paid tiers above it.

highlight For a reader who edits on a phone, True 8K export from Quik is the single most consequential difference on this page, and it favours GoPro.

It is the difference between publishing on the day and publishing when you get home. Shoot a ride or a descent and you can have the 8K reframe online that evening from wherever you are; no Insta360 camera does that. If you edit at a desk anyway, this win is worth nothing to you — but know which kind of editor you are before deciding it doesn't matter.

Aperture, with a caveat. The MAX2's f/1.8 is the widest aperture of any 360 camera on this page — wider than the X6's F2.0, the Osmo 360's f/1.9 and any Insta360 X-series camera. It comes from a retailer's spec sheet, not from GoPro, which is exactly the problem the disclosure section is about. I count it as a win; I would not bet a purchase on it.

Check the GoPro MAX2 price on Amazon →

Water and Durability: 5 m

This is where the MAX2 loses badly, and GoPro's own figure makes the case.

The MAX2 is rated to 5 m without a case. The Insta360 X5 is rated to 15 m — three times deeper — and the Insta360 X6 to 20 m, four times deeper. Even the DJI Osmo 360 manages 10 m, twice the MAX2.

Five metres covers a pool, a splash and a shallow snorkel. It is not a figure you can forget about. Both Insta360 cameras take 60 m dive cases; GoPro publishes no housed rating for the MAX2, so there is nothing to set against them. The Insta360 X5 review covers 15 m against 5 m in full, and the Insta360 X6 review covers 20 m and 8K50 at $400 more while GoPro's promotion runs ($200 at list).

Operating temperature narrows the MAX2 again: −10 °C to 35 °C, in the manual only, against Insta360's published −20 °C to 40 °C across the X-series. The MAX2's range is narrower at both ends, and most of all at the cold end — the part that matters on a winter mountain.

Battery shares this criterion in our scoring. The MAX2 carries a 1960 mAh Enduro battery and GoPro publishes no rated runtime for it. The X5 is rated at 93 min at 8K30 and 208 min in Endurance Mode; the X6 at 140 min at 8K30; the Osmo 360 at 100 min at 8K30. For the MAX2 there is no figure to put in that sentence, and I will not invent one.

Disclosure: What GoPro Publishes, and What It Does Not

On this site disclosure is a criterion in its own right, because a buyer cannot compare what a manufacturer does not state.

GoPro does not publish five specs for the MAX2: sensor size, aperture, weight, screen size and rated battery runtime. Four have substitute figures from retailers — 2 × 1/2.3", f/1.8, 195 g and 1.82" — each labelled on this page as retailer-sourced. The fifth has no substitute at all: GoProDB's official-runtime table for the camera is empty.

Two more rows are blank across GoPro's whole range, not just this camera. GoPro publishes no screen-brightness figure for any camera it sells, and no dynamic-range figure outside the MISSION 1 line.

The argument has to run both ways or it is an advert. Insta360 publishes no brightness figure for the X5, the X4, the Insta360 X3, the X4 Air, the Insta360 GO Ultra or the Insta360 GO 3S; only the X6 and the Insta360 Ace Pro 2 carry one. It publishes no dynamic-range figure for the X4, X3 or X4 Air. DJI publishes brightness for the Osmo 360 but keeps dynamic range out of its spec tables entirely; its 13.5-stop Osmo 360 figure exists only in a press release.

I will not tell you why any of these rows are blank. The absences are on the record; the reasons are not. What the tables do show is how much of a MAX2-versus-X5 comparison you can check against the manufacturers' own documents, and for the MAX2 it is less than for any other camera here. How we score a criterion when the manufacturer publishes no figure is set out in how we test.

Full Specifications

Every row traces to GoPro's published specifications, the MAX2 manual, or a named retailer. Where GoPro publishes nothing, the cell says so and says why.

Eight rows carry a GoPro figure, one of them a promotional price and one from the manual only. Four specification rows carry a retailer's. Six are empty or partly empty, and each says why.

Pros and cons

The Honest Limitation

Frequently asked questions