Moza Mini MX, a great gimbal with a flawed app

In a short time, mobile gimbals have exploded in today’s market. Which is a great thing because there are now options in every shape, size, and price range.

This gimbal succeeds at making one of the best small form factor gimbals. The design has probably the smallest footprint of any 3 axis gimbal alongside its rival the DJI OM 4. The design itself speaks to the engineering prowess over at Gudsen Moza. I Don’t think I can think of any other practical changes to the design without it gaining substantial mass. The thought that went into the ergonomics is to be praised since unlike its rival, the Mini MX is meant to be held at a 45-degree angle in it’s default position. This makes usage much less fatiguing over longer periods of use. The use of a type C charging connector is appreciated since for the love of all that is holy some companies are STILL using the archaic micro USB connectors.

Now when it comes to downsides of a tiny gimbal it should be apparent. Smaller arms mean physics are much more against you for stabilization. If you are looking for the ultimate stabilizer for mobile film making you simply have to look at it’s bigger siblings. But that is a more specific niche to be honest, just as the need for a tiny gimbal is a specific niche. And it really shines in that department. This gimbal was meant to be traveled with, to shove in a back pocket and whip out to vlog anywhere that you are. It is very well tuned for walking, minimizing jitters and bumps. That paired with well implemented face and object tracking (support may vary by phone) I think this really is ideal for mobile social media vlog mongers.

Where I would like to see real improvement, and where my main criticisms lie, are in the app used for controlling the gimbal. We’ll start with my biggest gripe. The bitrate. On my native camera app (on the One Plus 7 Pro) I can achieve 4k 60p and bitrates of 160mbps. That is a great bitrate for a phone assuring the best possible quality from these tiny little camera sensors. 60p also means I can slow the footage down to 40% for an even smoother 24p output for B Roll shots. In the Moza Genie app the maximum output was 4k 30p at a measly 40mbps and in selfie mode the limit was 1080p at an even smaller 19mbps… oof.

Now for posting to Instagram or TikTok that is fine. But anything above that like YouTube you will certainly see the degradation of quality. And I am uncertain as to why they capped the quality like that. Perhaps it was because the developers weren’t able to use each unique device’s camera specs for an even experience in the app? I am unsure. But I don’t think that is an impossible task to achieve.

This is also not an issue unique to Gudsen Moza as pretty much every mobile gimbal app I have used has suffered the same issue. So whoever breaks that mold will have a distinct advantage over the competition. Overcoming this by using the native camera app when recording is an option, however, you will lose the key features you may be needing like face tracking, starting and stopping recording with the gimbal button and so on.

Other than that the app is fairly capable, with an easy to understand layout with only a few more… gimmicky features like the template video maker that honestly has no real practical value. But hey, it’s there. There are also a variety of color filters you can use if coloring in post is not your forte.

Overall I think this is a very well-designed gimbal that simply has an app that does not do it justice. Restricting a camera’s true ability shouldn’t be acceptable just because most users may not notice it. Thankfully this is something that can be updated with a software patch, and I really hope that it does come. Because otherwise, I may leave what is an exceptionally designed gimbal at home more often. When it comes down to the rating I have to decide what I am rating. And since this app experience seems to be universal among all mobile gimbals at the moment

I can’t fault it entirely by those means. And the gimbal in design and use must be the main factor for it’s rating. So it gets a ⅘ as an overall score.