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DJI Pocket 2 vs Google Pixel 4a vs iPhone // What Matti Haapoja & other reviewers didn't mention!
Does the DJI Pocket 2 produce better video than the Google Pixel 4a/iPhone? In this comparison video I will let you know if you should upgrade from your phone to the DJI Pocket 2 for better video creation. I talk image quality (including example footage of both devices, night ISO test and more!), stabilization, my favorite accessories, like the wireless microphone, Active Track (that I use all the time) and much more! Stick till the end to learn if the DJI Pocket 2 is worth it for you or which camera you should use!
🔗 Matti Haapoja's Review: https://youtu.be/_RWStBprozE
🔗 BUY THE DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo kit: https://amzn.to/2J8FCNQ
🔗 BUY THE Google Pixel 4a: https://amzn.to/3o0B3DR
✨ WATCH NEXT ✨
- DJI Pocket 2 Review: https://youtu.be/j35Xy3ibRxc
- Google Pixel 4a Review: https://youtu.be/7wNDXsDKoCg
- Editing a 64 MP RAW photo from the DJI Pocket 2: https://youtu.be/60iktXOvAsw
✋ COME SAY HI!! ✋
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford (http://bit.ly/lba_instagram)
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/loic294
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lbaphotographie
📖 CHAPTERS 📖
00:00 - Intro
00:57 - Image quality: DJI Pocket 2 vs Mirrorless vs iPhone 12 Pro
02:07 - Test footage: DJI Pocket 2 vs Google Pixel 4a
02:35 - Why I compare the DJI Pocket 2 & Google Pixel 4a
03:02 - Image quality: Sharpness
03:39 - Image quality: Colors
03:59 - Image quality: Stabilization
04:34 - Image quality: Low light + ISO test
06:07 - Sound & Wireless Microphone
07:11 - Active Track 3.0
07:53 - Wireless Control with the DJI Mimo App
08:52 - Vlogging comparison
09:30 - PRO Mode & ND filters
10:03 - Google Camera vs Filmic Pro footage
10:43 - Ease of use & portability
12:04 - Small form factor
12:37 - Price Comparison
13:37 - Which video camera should YOU buy?
15:45 - Conclusion - Thanks for watching!
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- My online store: https://store.lbaphotographie.ca
🎶 MY MUSIC 🎶
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iu5gau/
📸 GEAR I USE ON YOUTUBE 📸
https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo https://geni.us/dji-pocket-2-combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card https://geni.us/sandisk-extreme-128gb
- Canon 6D Mk https://geni.us/canon-6d-mkii
- Google Pixel 4a https://geni.us/google-pixel-4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM https://geni.us/canon-lens-24-105
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-16-35
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-70-200
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD https://geni.us/vanguard-veo-265cb
- DJI MAVIC AIR https://geni.us/lba-dji-mavic-air
🌍 MY PERSONAL WEBSITE 🌍
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:57 Image quality: DJI Pocket 2 vs Mirrorless vs iPhone 12 Pro
- 2:07 Test footage: DJI Pocket 2 vs Google Pixel 4a
- 2:35 Why I compare the DJI Pocket 2 & Google Pixel 4a
- 3:02 Image quality: Sharpness
- 3:39 Image quality: Colors
- 3:59 Image quality: Stabilization
- 4:34 Image quality: Low light + ISO test
- 6:07 Sound & Wireless Microphone
- 7:11 Active Track 3.0
- 7:53 Wireless Control with the DJI Mimo App
- 8:52 Vlogging comparison
- 9:30 PRO Mode & ND filters
- 10:03 Google Camera vs Filmic Pro footage
- 10:43 Ease of use & portability
- 12:04 Small form factor
- 12:37 Price Comparison
- 13:37 Which video camera should YOU buy?
- 15:45 Conclusion - Thanks for watching!
should you be buying a dji pocket too simply use your cell phone or buy a bigger camera like a mirrorless material also frames this question quite well honestly my first reaction was kind of like do we really need another budget smaller camera the answer for me is yes definitely even though i think that image quality sound and ease of use are super important i think that many reviewers like matiapoya forgot to mention some of the features and accessories that are the most awesome inside of the dji pocket too let's get right into it for those of you who are new to this channel i'm like ben mahalford a young photographer and filmmaker on the journey to become better at sart two weeks ago i published my review of the dji pocket 2 my favorite small camera this is totally unrelated but look at how awesome the view is right now [Music] let's start by talking about image quality if you're like me an image called d isn't the most important part of a camera you can go check out the chapters below because i cover a lot more than just image quality inside of this video if you compare this to a more complete vlogging setup like the canon r5 or the save sony a7s iii especially not going to have as good image quality and this is just because the tiny sensors inside of the dji pocket 2 cannot compete with a full frame sensor inside of the bigger cameras it's also impossible right now with the computational power we have to compete with computational photography on every single frame inside of video like we can do when using photo modes inside of the google pixel 4a or the iphone talking of the iphone the image quality seems to be very similar between the iphone and the dji pocket 2 with a slight advantage to with the the jai pocket 2. i don't own an iphone 12 pro so you can go check out the video from matiapoya for some test footage if you want to compare that i will be comparing the footage with my google pixel 4a and one thing i want to clarify is that the dji pocket 2 will be getting hdr video but it's not here yet so we have to wait for the firmware update to be able to test it [Music] one thing i found weird is that most reviewers in north america seem to forget that apple isn't the leading brand throughout the world it actually only has 15 when you consider the whole world but i can understand it get mixed up because in north america it has over 50 this means that it's fair to assume that most people are probably using an android phone and android usually doesn't have as good video quality as the iphone with a few exceptions from high-end phones from samsung xiaomi or huawei i filmed a bunch of test footage using my google pixel 4 and the dji pocket 2 and the video from the dji pocket 2 consistently came out as better video if we look at the images from the google pixel 4 we can see that the images are completely over sharpened this isn't a problem only with the google pixel 4a most smartphones tend to over sharpen the images like crazy which is really annoying dji pocket 2 offers a lot more natural images and if you look at the example here we can see that the branches look sharp but are still very natural if we look on the pixel image from the google pixel 4e we can see that it looks like a total mess in the end the colors are very saturated inside of the image of the google pixel 4a and when you look at the pictures from the dji pocket 2 you can see that's a lot more naturals in terms of colors it's not necessarily the best thing for the google pixel 4a but it allows to get a little bit more professional images when you use the dji pocket 2 with the default picture profile another huge difference between these two cameras is actually the stabilization so the dji pocket 2 uses the gimbal to compensate for the movement where most smartphones actually use a mix of in-body and digital stabilization the problem with the method that the smartphone uses is actually that it creates weird distortions inside of the images sometimes and it's also needs to crop inside to get more detail inside of the shot so you're losing some of the resolution from the sensor when they're doing this so overall it's just a lot better stabilization you get from the dji pocket 2 compared to any smartphone technology in my review of the dji pocket 2 i mentioned the low light capabilities were better but it didn't really realize how much better they became if we compare the shot of my dog walking in total pitch dark we can still see some detail inside the image of the dji pocket 2 and we can even see the chosen background if we look at the image from the google pixel 4a we just don't see anything at all in that shot and that just shows how much detail is retained inside of dji pocket 2. this might be a little bit extreme as an example so let's go see some other test footage i took with the christmas lights and you can still see that here the dji pocket 2 still has more detail in every single shot another big problem with the google pixel 4 is that there's way too much noise and you lose all the detail and the sharpness in the shots where it doesn't seem to be able to use the autofocus correctly if you look at this precise shot of the christmas lights and the trees we can see it on the dji pocket too we still have detail inside of the snow and we can even see the branches in the background which is very impressive when you compare it to the gold pixel 4 where everything is just black in the end i did an iso test on the dji pocket 2 and it's very impressive to see that from iso 100 to 1600 the image is super clean and this shows that a bigger sensor instead of the dji pocket too compared to most smartphone cameras actually really helps gather more light and create a cleaner image for me image quality isn't the most important thing so let's go see what is when starting in filmmaking most people won't realize at least i didn't realize when i started how important sound is people are not going to stick around for a video that has 8k but great sound but we'll stick around if you have a 480p video that has great sound the dji creator combo kit includes this small wireless microphone which is super useful i won't go into much details because i talked about it inside of my review but two things that most reviewers forgot to mention is that this allows you to connect an external microphone inside of it and you can also use the button on the side as a wireless controller it's super useful because for example right now the shot i'm getting wouldn't be possible if i was using only the audio from my phone the audio you're hearing right now is from my phone and it's pretty bad and if we come back to the wireless microphone we can see that the audio is a lot better yes i could buy the rode wireless go microphone but at half the price of the dji crater combo kit it's way too expensive [Music] one of my favorite features on the dji pocket 2 is active track if you don't know what's active track you can select the subject on the screen of the camera or on your cell phone and the camera will automatically follow it afterwards this is super useful as a one-man band filmmaker because it makes it look like if you have a cameraman or even if you're alone this simply doesn't work on a cell phone camera because you need a gimbal that is turning around to follow the subject to have it work one thing i will notice is that the new version of active track isn't as good as the old version where it's a lot more choppy now i really hope they fix this in a firmware update because this is such a useful feature my favorite feature of the dji pocket 2 is the dji memo app that allows full wireless control of the camera you can use the app to get more creative shots by moving the gimbal or you can use it to access every single setting of the camera in a more intuitive interface i use this all the time when i'm getting b-roll of myself where i place down the camera on the tripod walk away open the app frame my shot start recording stop recording and then review the footage all of that without having to touch the camera a single time if i try doing the same bureau shot using my cell phone i actually have to place down the cell phone start recording walk away then come back review the footage start all over again because most of the time the framing isn't good this is a small feature but it's actually one that saves so much time when you're alone and you don't have a second person to check all the time that you're framing is right and you can just do it wirelessly using your cell phone [Music] the dji pocket 2 even becomes better if you're planning on doing some vlogging type shots with its front-facing screen you can actually see your framing and it also has active track that allows you to track your face and make sure it's always centered inside of their frame if you want to get the best image quality out of your cell phone you actually need to use your rear-facing cameras and this is kind of ironic because you cannot use anymore the screen to see what you're filming so you can see that the dji pocket 2 was designed with content creator in mind and just creates a whole better experience when you have to get some vlogging type shots [Music] most of the reviewers that didn't use the original dj osmo pocket seem to have not realized that there's a pro mode on the dji pocket too you can also add nd filters that clip on the lens using magnets which is super useful i have the polar pro standard filters that are great quality and don't have any color cast using an nd filter and the pro mode allows you to set your frame rate to 24 frames per second and set your shutter speed to one over a 50th of a second this is great to respect the rule of double your frame rate to get natural motion blur you could use a more professional camera app on your phone like filmmaker pro to get access to all these settings but i didn't see a huge difference in image quality between the default camera app and music filming pro there's also a huge downside is that you don't get access to some of the most useful features from the default camera app for example on the google pixel 4 you don't have access to the digital stabilization from the default app and on the iphone you don't have access to the stabilization and also the hdr mode which is a pretty big problem all of this to say that the dji pocket 2 allows you to have access to more professional settings without having to sacrifice any of your shooting modes [Music] the reason i use the dji pocket 2 instead of using my dslr it's its portability and ease of use if i want to get a shot i simply have to power on the device and within a second i'm ready to start recording by pressing the record button if i want to place the camera on any surface i can use the included tripod in the creator combo kit to place it wherever if i want to use my dslr i actually have to take it out of my bike then set up the tripod then set a few seconds settings inside of the camera and then i can start recording which is just a lot longer and more painful to do the dji pocket 2 also allows me to carry it with me all the time it actually fits in most of the pockets of my coats or in some of the pockets of my pants and that means that i just have it on me and if i want to get a shot i know i can get it really fast and i have the camera with me which just means i get more creative shots in the end another thing with the dji pocket 2 is that you have so many modes so you have slow motion hyperlapses motion lapses time lapses and many more they're not the greatest quality but they all allow to either take raw pictures or use a decent light picture profile to get more control of the shots in post-processing i will agree that the advantage of a phone here is you have it on you all the time but it is advantageous that you're stuck with the default settings inside of your camera up oh i almost forgot this point also and it's that it's a lot less awkward to use inside of a public space so if you're like me don't really like vlogging in public this is a great camera because it's a lot smaller another advantage of having a small camera is that if you go in a place where you're not supposed to use pro cameras without a permit you're probably going to be able to film with this small camera where you won't be able if you have a dslr or mirrorless this is going to be considered to be pro cameras but this one won't probably because they probably don't even know that it's a camera before letting you know which camera you should be buying i want to talk about the prices it's pretty obvious that the gi pocket 2 is a lot less expensive than a dslr or a mirrorless that can easily be cost between 3 000 to 5 000 dollars the dji pocket to creator combo kit costs 4.99 us dollars and if you decide to add to that a phone like the google pixel 4 at 350 you get a kit where you have really good pictures from the phone and a very versatile video camera if you compare this to the 9.99 price tag of the iphone 12 pro you can see that it's a lot cheaper to get this and you have a lot more features inside of the dji pocket too than just buying the iphone [Music] now which camera should you buy if you want the best image quality don't really mind having a bigger camera and also have a pretty big budget in that case buying a mirrorless camera like the sony a7s3 or the canon r5 is probably the best option for you i still use my dslr a lot when i want a shallow depth of field better control on the image or incredible autofocus but i'm a big believer that the best camera you can have is the one you have on you and in that case if you already have a cell phone that can shoot in hd it's probably more than enough if you're getting starting in filmmaking or youtube i started filming using a film camera that had totally terrible image quality but it still allowed me to learn a lot about filmmaking if you really want to upgrade your game a little bit but don't want to spend a lot of money on a camera i would suggest just start by upgrading your audio because that's probably the most important thing to upgrade if you already have a cell phone that can shoot in hd if you want to step up your video production game and want to get more creative and better quality shot than what your smartphone offers the dji pocket 2 is the right camera for you i also think it's a great camera if you're starting out on youtube or starting out in filmmaking it offers features that rivals much more expensive cameras and with the creator combo kit you get pretty much everything you need to get started without having to buy anything else the only thing i would buy an extra are nd filters that really help to step up your game i also think the dji pocket 2 is a great camera if you travel a lot i bought the original version the dji osmo pocket when i left for from montreal to go to vancouver for eight months i wanted something that was small portable and still offered great image quality to document my trip i ended up bringing the dji osmo pocket on pretty much any adventure whether it was skiing hiking biking walking pretty much anything outside of my house i think it's important to understand this like the name suggests it's a pocket sized camera it doesn't try to be the best camera available but it tries to pack the most features and quality inside the smallest package possible and that's why i think it's one of the most versatile small cameras i hope this video helped you understand why i love so much the dji pocket 2 and use it in every single of my videos i also want to give a huge shout out to matthias puya and i'm going to link his review down below that inspired me to make this video as usual if you enjoyed this video please leave a like below it really does help the channel also don't forget to hit that big red subscribe button to learn when i have a new video that comes out see you in the next one bye
Video Links
- 🔗 Matti Haapoja's Review
- 🔗 BUY THE DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo kit
- 🔗 BUY THE Google Pixel 4a
- DJI Pocket 2 Review
- Google Pixel 4a Review
- Editing a 64 MP RAW photo from the DJI Pocket 2
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford ()
- My online store
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound
- https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card
- Canon 6D Mk
- Google Pixel 4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD
- DJI MAVIC AIR
- http://bit.ly/loicba
What is this video about?
Should you upgrade from your phone to the DJI Pocket 2? I spent time with both devices to find out what Matti Haapoja and other reviewers didn't mention.
On paper, comparing image quality between a gimbal camera and a smartphone seems unfair. The DJI Pocket 2 has a smaller sensor than a mirrorless, sure—but it actually holds its own against phones in several meaningful ways. The Pocket 2 consistently outperformed my Google Pixel 4a in sharpness and color accuracy; where the Pixel over-sharpens everything to death, the Pocket 2 gives you natural, professional-looking footage. And the stabilization difference is night and day. Phones rely on in-body and digital stabilization, which crops your image and creates weird distortions. The gimbal just… works. My favorite discovery? Low-light performance. In pitch darkness, the Pocket 2 retained detail where the Pixel showed almost nothing.
But image quality isn't everything—and I think that's what gets overlooked. Sound matters more than you'd think. Most people won't watch a video with 8K but terrible audio, but they'll stick with 480p if it sounds great. The Creator Combo includes a wireless microphone that solves this immediately. You can even attach an external mic to it, and use its button as a wireless controller. That's huge for solo filmmakers.
Then there's Active Track 3.0, which automatically follows your subject once you select it on screen. This isn't possible on a phone—you need a gimbal. For one-person operations, it's like having a second cameraman. And the DJI Mimo app? That's my secret weapon. Full wireless control means I can place the camera on a tripod, frame my shot via phone, record, review, and adjust everything without touching the hardware once. Try that with a smartphone and you're walking back and forth constantly.
The Pocket 2 is built for creators. It has a front-facing screen for vlogging, a Pro Mode with manual controls, and native support for ND filters via magnetic clips. You don't sacrifice shooting modes to access professional settings like you would with Filmic Pro on a phone.
Portability wins here too. It fits in my coat pocket. I have it with me constantly, which means I actually capture shots instead of thinking "I wish I had a camera." Yes, your phone is always on you—but you're stuck with whatever default settings it ships with. The Pocket 2 lets you be intentional.
The real question is: which tool matches your needs? If you want the absolute best image quality and don't mind the bulk, mirrorless is still king. If you already shoot decent video on your phone, you're probably fine. But if you're serious about improving your craft, enjoy solo filmmaking, travel frequently, or want to level up without spending thousands, the DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo is the smartest move. It costs $499, gives you everything you need out of the box, and punches way above its weight.