Best Cheap Smartphone Gimbals

Best Cheap Smartphone Gimbals

Looking to add extra stabilization to your smartphone film kit? Inbuilt smartphone stabilizers are improving all the time. However they’re mostly designed to help you take crisper photos, rather than smoother video.

Using your inbuilt EIS or OIS, you can get smoother video if you’re moving very slowly. But if you try any faster movements, inbuilt stabilization struggles or can even make the video look much worse. This is because, as the EIS or OIS moves around struggling to make the image still, it adds even more shakiness to the video.

If you want to add real smoothness to your video, some kind of gimbal will do a much better job. Now you can walk fast, jog, have the camera swoop down from a height, or skim along the ground and maintain that cinematic smoothness.

Some issues to be aware of:

1. the front of the gimbal can appear in your footage. This is more likely to happen if you are using an wide lens (either as a conversion lens or if your phone has an ultra wide option).
2. some users find their gimbal loses a perfect level over time. The camera leans to the left or right and it can be a struggle to reset it back to sit level with the horizon.

More affordable gimbals

The 2 most popular smartphone gimbals are the Zhiyun Smooth 4 and the DJI Osmo Mobile 2. They’re both great stabilizers for your smartphone. Plus they both have integration with top camera app FiLMiC Pro.

But they are not the most affordable gimbals. There are also some cheaper gimbals which don’t get talked about much. Some gimbals also seem to popular in certain regions of the world.

So if you want a gimbal but don’t want to spend over $100, here’s our Top 3 best ones to look at.

1. MOZA Mini S

I wrote about the new Moza gimbal when it was announced a few months back. Moza have now released the gimbal, at a very competitive price too.

This is a foldable gimbal, which makes this 3 axis stabilizer a bit different from others. So not only is it more affordable, it’s more portable too.

The Moza Mini S comes with a Moza Genie app. Once you connect your phone to the gimbal using the app, you get more controls from the gimbal to your phone.

The app gives you some manual control over your camera (to set ISO and white balance for example) and timelapse control features, too. There’s also object tracking within the app.

So this gimbal gives you a lot of features for at a price that’s very competitive when compared to the more popular gimbals.

Check Moza Mini S Price on Amazon

There seem to be 2 models of this gimbal: the Essential and the Extendable version. The extendable version appeared in the preview and allows you to extend the gimbal like a short selfie-stick. However, I can find no mention of this feature on their website or on Amazon (even when the gimbal has “extendable” in the title).

BarbsterFilms gives the gimbal a thorough testing of the Essential model below, with some nice shots, including Glastonbury Tor in the background.

1. Gimpro ONE

The Gimpro Smartphone Gimbal is a good, simple stabilizer. It’s one thing to have a ton of features, but sometimes you just want something that doesn’t require months to learn how to use, that works and is reliable. Simpler devices are often less prone to faults, as there is less stuff to go wrong.

The Gimpro ONE has the build quality and features of many top gimbals, but at a cheaper price. The device comes with a well made carry case and a USB charging cable.

The handle has a small control panel with the usual power button, joystick and status lights. The “Mode” button switches between the 3 modes: Follow, Pan Follow and Lock.

The Grimpro One app functions include: Time-lapse, Face/Object Tracking, Panorama Photography, Zoom, Slow Motion.

So this is a good gimbal which does what most other gimbals do, but without any added gimmicks. And for a good few dollars less.

Check Price of Gimpro ONE on Amazon

Here’s the Gimpro ONE in action:

3. Hohem iSteady

The Hohem iSteady smartphone gimbal is well built, solid and durable. With many similar features to other popular gimbals, the Hohem iSteady does the basics well. The iSteady app includes functions like Inception mode (for doing barrel rolls), 360°panorama, Motion time lapse, Hyperlapse, Slow-motion and more. The slider button can be used as a focus puller, too. The app also supports beauty mode, object tracking and face tracking.

Having said that, the app can be a bit glitchy. But the most important thing is whether the gimbal provides smooth, level stabilization for your phone. This gimbal certainly achieves important function, and does it pretty well. The built-in 4000mAh battery lasts for 12 hours (compared to the Moza’s 5-8 hours) and can be used as a power bank for mounted smartphones.

Check iSteady Price on Amazon

See the Hohem iSteady in action:

Check out our full best smartphone gimbals list.

Recommended: The Official MoMo Smartphone Filmmaking KIT LIST.

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