ALL IN ONE Smartphone Gadget Power Vision S1 gimbal, power bank and livestreaming companion

in depth review...

3/5/2022

Elegant, very cool looking design, small and multifunctional. Power Vision has a new product out. Power Vision S1 is the name of this new smartphone gimbal which is also a charging companion. Perfect for live streaming, presentations & capturing everyday life. The design is really eye-catching, I haven’t seen anything like it. How does it work? What can we do with this? What can we use it for? What accessories can we get with it? How is the app? I want to know everything.

I am going to go straight to the main box of the power vision S1. Packaging is very presentable. What I want to see though is what is inside. The gimbal comes in several colours. You can choose from black, green and blue. What is inside of this package is the gimbal, manual, charging cable and magnetic wall/car mount which is quite handy. The gimbal looks very cool. The design is really interesting. Very pleasant feeling in the hands, very smooth. It is even smaller than my iPhone 13pro. The folded dimensions are 141.5 x 58.4 x 27.9mm. It’s very solid, it’s got weight to it. The weight is 298g. When it comes to compatibility, the maximum payload is 220 plus minus 60. Compatible phone length is maximum 164mm. It’s got Li-ion 1030mAh battery (display on the screen 15.86Wh/1030mAh 15.4V) Charging time is 2 hours which is quite quick and once fully charged and properly balanced you can get up to 15hours of working time. This gimbal can be used in temperatures ranging from  0 to 40 degrees Celsius.

So how do we open this up? There is this little door here with little magnets, step one, you open it up like this and there are your gimbal motors. It is a 3 axis gimbal. This is actually pretty smart. They are hidden, they are protected. Step 2 is pulling this up, step 3 is opening this part until it clicks and step 4 is twisting the whole top. The unfolded dimensions are 258.5 x 58.4 x 59.3mm.

Power Vision S1 all in one smartphone gimbal
Power Vision S1 all in one smartphone gimbal

It’s got a hidden little tripod. In the front 2 legs come out. Besides the built in little tripod you can actually mount it on an external tripod or selfie stick right here. When you purchase this gimbal you have to choose from 3 packages they offer. Each package has different options when it comes to accessories. You can either get a magnetic case combo which has 2x wall mount and magnetic phone case. This is only available to select phones. Another one is Universal combo where you will get magnetic universal phone mount and 2x wall mount. Last option is the Explorer kit which has this magnetic phone clamp for phones between 2.6 and 3.3 inch wide. I am going to be using the magnetic phone clamp.

I want to talk about charging a smartphone with S1. So you can charge the smartphone via cable or wirelessly. When it is off and you just place the phone on top of it, you just press the power button shortly and charging can start. The charging power is 10W like that or up to 18W with a wired charger. When the S1 is on you can charge your smartphone through a wired charger and the maximum power will be 5W. There is one more option. When you are charging the entire S1 you can charge your smartphone at the same time. I like it. Less cables to bring when you travel.

Buttons. What they can do and how to operate this gimbal? The power button is at the bottom and controls a few things. Press once to open the modes menu, press 2x to switch between horizontal and vertical mode, press 3x to see your gallery. Record button straight forward. Press to start or stop recording and if you are in photo mode, press and hold you can take photos in burst mode. The lights here will tell you what is going on with the gimbal, how much battery is left. It will change colors if there is a problem with bluetooth connection and so on. Zoom in and the zoom slider is below the lights. The joystick is actually not only a joystick, it is a 5 way button. So you move the gimbal left, right, up and down. If you press 1x you will enable tracking mode. If you press 2x you will recenter the gimbal. If you press 3x you will switch between front and rear cameras. If you press and hold you will be in Lock mode. If you press and press and hold you will be in sports mode.

There are 3 ways you can use this gimbal. Upright mode, side grip mode and underslung mode. I’ve tested all move modes and I’ve been playing with it for a bit. Filming with standard and telephoto lenses is no problem. When you film with an ultra wide angle lens you can see this arm in the shot quite a bit when you go up. I tried it as I was holding the gimbal sideways and the motor was quite visible. The result is the same when I move the phone to the left quite a bit. In the underslung mode you will get better results. I found that you have to find an angle, something like this not to see the arm in the shot. The range of movement is also smaller. The tilt is smaller, however the pan is quite large. Not full 360, most likely 330 something like that. You can change gimbal modes in the app only by pulling up the menu with the power button. There is follow mode, tilt locked mode and FPV. You can also do GO in other words sports mode. I have also tested tracking feature and I didn't have any problems there. The gimbal is tracking well.


Power Vision S1 all in one smartphone gimbal
Power Vision S1 all in one smartphone gimbal

Let’s see what the app has to offer. Right on the home page you have 3 big sections. The red button will take you to the filming app, we’ll get to this soon…  but what is on the left is called power follow. Once you enable that, it is like a screen recorder everything will get recorded including notifications. Then you enter the 3rd party live broadcast platform and once you show five fingers to camera, hand, the gimbal will start following you. This makes this tool excellent for presentations, online meetings, private coaching, live streaming and so on. At the bottom you have the 3rd option which I want to mention and that would be a built in video editor. It’s got quite a lot of controls there. Let’s enter the main filming section. On the left we have light, gesture control, beauty mode and gimbal settings. First we have information about the gimbal and firmware, below is where you can adjust gimbal modes, zoom speed, joystick movement speed and switch direction of movement, auto calibration and horizontal gimbal adjustment.

On the right side is where you can enable tracking and select filming modes. Panorama has options 3x3, 240 degrees and clone. Photo and video is next, slow motion 4x and 8x in 720p and 1080p. Timelapse where you can also film motion lapse is the last option.  Further right is where you can switch between rear and front camera and access further settings. You can select white balance, turn on the grid, choose filters, customize beauty mode, select resolution and frame rates. You can film in 24,30 and 60fps in 4K, 1080p and 720p. You can turn on gesture control and light. Record button is below and then you have the option to film and take photos in automatic mode or manual mode. Last one is access to your gallery.  Manual filming? Is it possible to balance this? It is a bit slower, I can feel the motors working harder. But it works.

I know that you are eager to see what is in the app on an Android phone. I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S10 plus. What I will see on this phone might not be the same on other Android phones. You have to check compatibility on their website. Some Androids will get more features especially when it comes to resolution, others will get less. That I cannot answer. This is what I see with this phone. What you are not going to get with this Android is Slow Motion, filming with telephoto lens and you will be able to film in 30fps only. Everything else seems to be the same.

I like this product for live streaming mainly, as power bank and daily use as you can attach the magnets everywhere. I like it for basic, just quick filming throughout the day mainly in automatic mode. There is a limitation with movements and the fact that you can see the arm in the shot with ultra wide angle lens so it wouldn’t be my choice for advanced filming much however again for office, presentations, live streaming and  stationary, this is great.

POWER VISION S1 gimbal (on Amazon) - https://geni.us/kjrJy

POWER VISION S1 gimbal (on B&H) - https://geni.us/4koeYs

POWER VISION S1 gimbal (official) - https://bit.ly/3IIGTVf (10% discount code: ZD10%)

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