FIMI Palm Unboxing and Review

Hey everyone! Right now I’m in Bangkok Thailand escaping the New Year’s cold and crowd back in China. Thanks to all of you I have a job I can do on the road- at least for a little while. Travel is a perfect opportunity to review some new devices I’ve been wanting to take a look at. The first, is the FIMI Palm, a handheld gimbal camera. Now I know what you’re thinking, same as me- isn’t that just an Osmo Pocket knock-off? Well, sort of.

00:42 - If you remember from my Osmo review the biggest problem it has, is it’s very narrow field of view. I have to use it with a lens adapter and take that adapter on and off each time I turn the camera on. That’s a huge limitation. If DJI had fixed that and produced a new Osmo Pocket I’d be reviewing that. But they didn’t and FIMI saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They have a wide field of view by default, so let’s unbox it, and take a look. Okay, it looks like there is a plastic enclosure to protect the camera lens. I can 3D print another cover if I want. Put it aside. So this looks like a joystick. Oh, yeah. This is a joystick and on the DJI Osmo, it doesn’t have that. But they both have the same power button. Okay, and the screen, so from the appearance, the screen, the Fimi control panel is bigger than the DJI one. Okay, let’s turn it on. It says I haven’t inserted the SD card. Alright, let me find the SD card. So they both have the SD card slot on the side. Alright. Please format it, okay. If I want to quit out, I can push the joystick to quit out. So right now let’s take a look at the menu.

02:51 - So this, unlike the DJI Osmo, I found it has a lot of options so I got a little bit confused because it’s my first time to use this. On DJI Osmo it was just straight forward. If I swipe it down, you see this have FPV pitch lock, and then if I press it again, it has gimbal lock and follow mode. Yes, this gimbal has a follow mode and if you swipe it This is into their setting system. This is their multi-frames camera settings, gimbal settings, system settings. So for the DJI Osmo, I need to put on the lens, the adapter.

03:39 - Last time, when I was demonstrating it to my friends at the airport, I think I broke it. So the lens is broken and I haven’t replaced it, I haven’t change it to the new ones. But this one, this one has a wide-angle lens, it’s 128 degrees. And the DJI Osomo is, I forgot, I got to check. (it’s 80º) But this seems has to take a little bit of time to learn it not difficult, it just has a lot of options. Just as I said, I need to test it in the real world and see the quality. So that I could recommend you to buy it, or not. So right now we are in a mall called Mega Plaza. A lot of Chinese come here and you can see in the background they have a lot of, how do you call this? In China, we call it hand model. You can use a resin printer to make this and color them.

04:47 - Since I have 3D printers, I don’t need to buy any of these, I can make these. This looks like the camera equipment section. So upstairs there are more figurines, there are more model stuff and this floor is for the camera lens, camera equipment. No wonder you said so many Chinese come here. So right now we are at the food court. Before it was too empty so we wait at the food court. Is it working? Yeah, the face tracking is working. Before it was not working. You see the green frame? It’s face tracking.

05:34 - So the auntie from the food court recognized me from my Youtube channel. And yeah we can’t curse. She (Bam) just taught me how to curse and I should not. I am not supposed to. Okay, let’s go. Wow! Well, that was obviously not ok. But, it’s kind of so not ok that it’s clearly not supposed to be sold that way. It’s not bad, it’s broken. One of the great things about being a Shenzhen local is these companies are all right in my neighborhood and we chat online all the time. Having direct access is pretty helpful when you are trying to do a review like this.

06:16 - So it was really easy to show the engineers the problem they were of course super embarrassed and immediately sent me the link to update the firmware. I’m going to flash that now, then go for a walk with the Fimi Palm, and the DJI Osmo Pocket, both in face tracking mode so we can get a comparison. The DJI at $400 costs double what the Fimi does at $200, so it’s not exactly fair, but let’s see how it does. So I have two cameras side by side on my selfie pole and I did some DIY on the pole. Now it is side by side and it is filming me. So right now I am heading for lunch.

07:17 - I have been eating various food these days. But usually, in Thailand, I eat some Thai food but not a lot of Thai food. Mostly Western food, Japanese food, and Chinese food. The western food in Bangkok is pretty good compared to the ones in China, it’s much better. And whenever I come across to this street, the aunties and uncles Thank you.

07:53 - I don’t know what they are saying but they always have the reaction, this is like a food street and then there are little kids I just want to take a quick moment to thank JLCPCB for sponsoring this video. As most of you know we’re having a bit of a situation back in China, but Shenzhen- where I live and JLCPCB is located, is in pretty good shape. Everyone is back to work at the JLC factory, they are taking every precaution to protect the health of the workers, and are filling orders as usual- now that the holiday is over. I’m in Bangkok now- as you just saw my girl Bam is keeping me company and helping me shoot some videos for all of you. Thanks to the generous support of sponsors like JLCPCB I can work from Thailand for a little while.

08:47 - JLC has encouraged me to stay here until things are a bit better back home and that really means a lot to me. So if you need PCBs or PCBA services, please take care of the company that takes such good care of me and place those orders with JLCPCB. Thank you. So the other day I came here and I found this place. Look, they have pie. Let me see, can you see it? Beef stew, yes. There is a beautiful girl. Okay. Eat here or take away? Huh? Eat here or take away? Beef stew, this one. Eat here or take away? Here. This is everywhere.

No matter in Thailand or China, they have the Mexican churros. Yeah, like fried dough. So I think I am going to get It is either a sandwich or I like bánh mì, I am going to get some Vietnamese bánh mì. It is better. They have alcohol but I don’t know if they serve at this hour. Bánh mì is not this one and I have to go back and get my pie. Hello. I want the Bánh mì, pork. Bánh mì, pork? Pork, yeah. I just ordered the Vietnamese food. Now I am going to get my pie and probably get something to drink. My pie? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Looks good.

10:52 - Hello! Hello! I want to have a beer, what kind do you have? Beer? Beer, yes. On the top. Pineapple beer? Cider? Pineapple Cider, yeah, sure. Thank you. So I just got my beer. Pretty strong, it tastes like a cocktail to me. Hmm. Tough. The Fimi and Osmo hardware are definitely comparable, which considering the price difference is amazing. Where the Fimi really loses ground is the firmware.

11:35 - The UI and functionality are just not quite as polished as the DJI, at least not this early version. The DJI’s lack of a joystick really, really hurts it and gives the FIMI a huge advantage. The FIMI’s field of view is much more practical for vlogging, but because it centers the face absolutely, and does not position it near the top properly using the rule of thirds, you end up with very odd framing that needs to be cropped. This is something I’ve told them about and hopefully will be fixed soon. The Fimi’s touch screen is less responsive and the interface tends to drop into manual modes I think that’s what happened with the footage of Bam and I, the metering mode was wrong.

12:22 - But, keep in mind the Fimi was just released a few weeks ago and they are updating the firmware every week, which considering the health situation in China right now is pretty amazing, they’ve been working through the whole crises. Both the Fimi and the DJI have USB-C jacks, neither one will let you plug a USB-C lavaliere microphone directly into the camera. Big fail for both because neither has built-in audio worth writing home about. Both let you do it with a 3.5-millimeter converter, but frankly, it’s not a very clean solution and makes the whole thing pretty clunky. Final verdict, if you primarily shoot other people, need a small gimbal and have a large budget, the Osmo Pocket is your best bet.

13:17 - If you are a vlogger on a budget who primarily faces the camera, and are willing to put in an extra couple minutes to learn the interface, you can get a camera 90% as good, for 50% of the Osmo Pocket’s price. No matter how you look at it, 200 is a huge price difference. Ok, that’s it for today. I’ll see you all next time- and remember, if I can do it- anyone can do it! .