I really really love this thing, I have used it on many shoots and it works with the programer controller or even better with the APP. I film myself often for youtube and this comes in handy every time.

The instructions tell you to lock the base for the ball head before attaching the mount. The lock won't move into that position, no matter how hard I push. So I contact customer support. And I get no response. Bad sign. The instructions are of no use and poorly written, at that. This is going back to amazon. I can't gamble with $600 on a device that does not come with instructions and has no customer support. I should have known that a company that pays no attention to the poor English on its website and in the product description won't care about instructions or the product quality, either.

The media could not be loaded.

The media could not be loaded.

This camera slider is a great tool to add to my arsenal, and lets me take creative and interesting Broll that is much harder to produce otherwise. I've taken my time before posting this review to make sure I was able to use the gimbal for a decent amount of time, and I'm happy to report that my feedback is mostly positive.Build quality:The rails on this slider are very straight, smooth, and strong, definitely able to support heavy camera loads and move them consistently. The belt drive system that moves the X axis is well made and smoothly moves the camera in all speed modes. For mounting, the heavy duty base plate is very thick and strong., with numerous spots to mount to. Each of the ends has two standoff feet which can be adjusted to different heights and angles, if you want to use it on a table or on the ground. These are made of metal and adjust with knobs on the end. They have a sort of rosette mechanism that lets you set them at various angles. The included ballhead is decent, but far from the best I've ever used. However, it is able to easily hold my heavy battery grip rig and lens without an issue. It's definitely not the smoothest ever, especially in the rotation axis.X Axis:The X axis is controlled by a motor in the base end of the slider, and is very smooth in operation, consistent with positioning, and easy to operate. They tout that you can smoothly move it manually when the gimbal is off, but it does not really compare to the smoothness of my shorter manual slider. Good overall, decent speed capability, and easy to use.Y Axis (rotation):This secondary axis is one of the big selling points of this more expensive gimbal, and wow, it's super cool to create shots with this! Overall, it works well, and you can manually control it with the joystick just like the other axis. However, it has one major issue, and that's the gearing and backlash. While running at slow speeds with a heavier load (5 lbs or so) you can see it shaking a little bit, kind of like struggling to make it move slow enough. This is my one major complaint about the slider, but it is kind of minor, depending on what moves you do with it.Controls:This slider is controlled by a joystick, control knob, and a couple buttons. It's easy enough to manipulate, but the menus can be a little bit confusing, and it can be hard to find specific things. I pretty much exclusively use the video mode on here, so once I figured it out, it wasn't a big deal. The screen is useful and provides information about the speed and parameters you've got.App:Couldn't get it to work, might as well not exist. I wish it worked though, because it would be really useful to be able to set different keyframe points and stuff, assuming it has that capability.Battery:The GVM NP batteries provided with this slider last quite a long time, however there are a couple issues. One, there's no way to tell how much battery is left on the slider at all. No indication on the screen, and absolutely no indication at all on the rotation axis where you put the second battery. Another thing to note, is if you leave the rotation axis battery on it, even if you turn off the slider from the controls side, the rotation axis will stay on, and locked, and deplete the battery until it dies. I had this happen one time, and now I have to make sure I take off the battery every time I finish using it. The batteries do last a long time though, and I've never had them actually die during a shoot, you can definitely get at least 8 to 10 hours out of it.Overall:This GVM slider has added an additional way for me to express my creativity in my broll shots and sped up timelapse-ish shots. I use it al the time when shooting, and overall, it's great. I wish it was a little bit lighter, and I also wish you could more easily center-mount it. Depending on your tripod head you may or may not be able to move the camera from left all the way to right without it sagging, when you center-mount. Alternatively, you can use the tripod mounts at either end, but that is much more of a pain to set up.