Not suitable for all purposes

I had been a three-way and a Ball tripod head and was looking for a new, which combines both systems. The three-way head was too bulky to me often and too slow to use. The ball head, however, was usually too little exact me.

Admittedly, the use of the joystick is very simple, similar to the system of a bicycle brake. When I hold the lever down, I can move around the camera in all directions. However, I noticed first how stiff the movement proceeds - at the start of the movement is jerky always a little until it turns into a fluid movement.
Even a change of friction on the corresponding wheel has not changed. At first I noticed no difference, until I discovered that you really have to push through all the levers to have no resistance. However, this is in the long run really exhausting - I have a tripod 2h used at a time - and am now of the opinion that one could sell the part as a fitness machine.

In the macro range of tripod head is unfortunately not to use because the camera (in my case a 7D with Tokina 100mm macro lens) after releasing the lever always a little to resonate and the selected position changed so. It really is indeed a few meters, but in the macro range, this may be just critical.

In the product description is also advertised that panoramic photographs were possible. So this one would have a very accurate eye and a very steady hand have, because there is, to always have his eyes on the spirit level. The tripod head is not an option to terminate the vertical movement, so you can never accurately position the camera for a panoramic.

Overall, I was also with the processing rather dissatisfied: The part reeked of plastic, although it should be made of magnesium, it creaked on pressing the lever and the lubricated ball is not really the latest state of the art.

What bothered me also was the large packing size: the joystick is quite massive and heavy. In the horizontal position, it is during packing away about 15 cm from the tripod and if you fold it up, the pack size of the stand extended by a total of about 20cm.

Conclusion: a large, sluggish tripod head, neither for panoramas (no exact positioning possible) for the macro area (swings), nor's films (jerky movements) and suitable for the offered processing is too costly.
I have sent him back again and ordered a hydraulic ball joint which moreover has a 360 ° mark for panoramas, has a lock for the vertical axis, costs less and has a smaller pack size by far.