gopro 4 black lcd touch screen pricelist

I do like being able to view what you are shooting. I have not been much in favor of the touch screen just because of it"s small size. I guess one could use a rubber tip pen, but haven"t used or tried that. At least they made it, with forethought, to use with all 3"s and 4"s.

The LCD Touch BacPac™ is a removable touch display that seamlessly attaches to the back of your GoPro for added convenience and control. It’s perfect for playing back videos and photos directly from your camera, including audio and instant slow-motion playback. See what your camera sees to frame your shots with confidence. Adjusting camera settings is easier than ever—just tap and touch the screen. Plus, when used with HERO4 cameras, you can select modes and navigate menus with a simple swipe. Includes Standard, Skeleton and Touch BacPac™ Backdoors.

Are you thinking of buying GoPro LCD Touch BacPac for Hero 3/Hero 3 Plus/Hero 4? This is one of the star products at xtremeinn, the online extreme sports store. The price is 84.99 €, limited time! At xtremeinn you can benefit from the biggest advantages and find products from GoPro at the best price. All our extreme sports products have a manufacturer quality guarantee.

Early last month GoPro completed their annual October ritual of releasing a suite of new units.  Like past years, GoPro doesn’t tend to make massive upgrades in their units, but rather works to add incremental features and performance bumps.

It’s somewhat rare that I group this many products into a single review.  Sometimes I’ll do two minor variations of the same product in a single post, but I think this is the first threesome I’ve had around these parts.  When it comes to the GoPro packaging though, all three units are pretty similar actually. They all include the following:

– The camera itself (duh) – The battery for the camera – A mini-USB cable – An underwater case rated to 40m/131ft – An alternate/secondary door for the case that allows for better audio – A small stack of GoPro stickers – A small quick-start guide and other paper junk – A flat adhesive mount – A curved adhesive mount – A loss prevention rubber stopper

In addition, the Hero4 Black and Silver also include a little adapter arm for the mounting system to change the direction a bit.  Of course, because everyone wants to see exactly what comes in each package, I’ve included the unboxing for each of them below.  I’ve abbreviated it a little bit though on the Silver/Base just to keep things non-redundant.  Sound good?  Let’s tear apart some boxes…

To begin you’ll find the boxes of the Black and Silver fairly similarly designed, with only the Base Hero slightly different with cheaper packaging materials to save weight and cost.

Here’s what you’ll get inside the Hero4 Black box.  It’s all the items noted above, but one little piece that many people accidentally miss – which is the flat black baseplate that the Hero comes on.  It can in effect act as a handy little tripod, yet many folks simply throw it away.

Next, the standard mini-USB plug that can be used to both charge the unit as well as download photos.  Note that this USB cable (and your attached GoPro) can be plugged into any USB outlet on the planet.

Both the Black and Silver come with the same set of mounts.  You have two adhesive mounts, one being pancake flat, while the other is slightly curved (such as for a helmet).  Behind it are two different mount pieces, one that holds the camera a little further back, while the other has less extension (it’s attached to the baseplate to begin).  Meanwhile they also include a few extenders and direction changers seen to the right.

The bottom opens up identically on the Black and Silver, which is where you’ll place the battery.  There’s a small little button you’ll press that’ll then pop open the door.  It’s a much better design than the annoying battery cover found on previous GoPro units.

The only difference in the box is the case doors.  The Silver edition includes three doors (instead of two), and two of these doors are designed to allow you to operate the touch screen. In the below photo, the two lower doors allow touch screen operation.  The left one is completely open, while the right one has a thin flexible plastic.

Here’s the front of the camera, as you can see, it’s virtually identical to the Hero4 Black.  Though, strangely in my case it actually has a small manufacturing defect on the front of the LCD screen.  It hasn’t bothered me though, and I’m too lazy to deal with returning it.

The 2014 GoPro Hero base unit is packaged slightly differently.  For example it lacks the top plastic ‘dome’ found on the other/past units, as well as the plastic baseplate.  Obviously at a fraction of the price they were looking to cut costs that were unnecessary, which, is completely reasonable.

Below are the components within the box.  You’ll find the two adhesive mounts (flat/curved), but only one mounting attachment piece between the GoPro and the adhesive mounts.  Don’t worry, you still get stickers.

When it comes to size, the Hero4 is identical to that of the Hero3, so there’s no changes there.  It’ll fit into all the same mounts, cases and locations that the Hero3 did.  This is particularly interesting even in the case of the touch-screen display included on the Hero4 Silver.  Of course, if you add a touch/display screen to the Hero4 Black then it’ll increase the size accordingly.

Looking at other units on the market, the GoPro remains the smallest unit with the highest quality video.  No doubt you can look at something smaller like the new Polaroid cube, but with that comes incredibly rough video (stabilization-wise).  While the baseline Polaroid 1080p video isn’t horrible when just sitting still, it’s not at all awesome with any movement at all.  And given the point of an action cam is…action, that’s sorta limiting:

Meanwhile, if you compare it to something like the Sony series of action cams, it’s sorta a wash.  The Sony cams are longer, but thinner.  While the GoPro’s appear a bit chubbier.  Both can go sans-case, though neither should be taken underwater without their respective cases.

Turning to something like the VIRB series, the GoPro is much smaller without the case, though only somewhat smaller with the case.  The VIRB doesn’t require a case unless going deeper underwater (splashing around in a pool is fine).  But, the GoPro is also roughly the size of a Twinkie compared to that of a kiwi fruit (not the bird, nor the New Zealander’s) with the Garmin VIRB.  Note that both the VIRB and VIRB Elite share the same outer shell.

Of course, to some degree comparing sizes with the GoPro is somewhat academic.  It’s well established as a completely acceptable sized unit within the marketplace – with the case.  And without the case the options are pretty much unlimited.

Let’s start off with establishing some of the basics, things that are largely common to all units.  To begin, you’ll turn on the unit by holding down the front-facing button (Mode).  This will get the GoPro ready to record, but won’t start recording:

Each of the units will require a MicroSD card to record to.  These are super-cheap though and can be found starting at about $12 for quality 16GB ones.  The Hero4 Black and Silver support card sizes up to 64GB, whereas the Hero base only supports 32GB. Note that when it comes to speed of cards, it’ll depend a little bit on how you plan to use the units.  For generic 720p/1080p content in the 24-30FPS mode, it’s frankly not going to matter too much how fast of a card you have.  But if you start recording 2.7K/4K footage at full frame rates you’re going to want fast cards to be able to keep up.

For those curious, in the Black/Silver I’ve been using the SanDisk U1 64GB Extreme Plus cards, without any recording issues.  Again, for the Hero base, this would be beyond overkill (it couldn’t use it if it tried).

With the camera powered on, all units have a front-facing LCD screen.  This screen will show you which mode you’re in, for example, video, photo, time lapse, etc…  You can simply tap the front mode button to iterate to the next mode.

New to the Hero4 lineup though on the Black/Silver models is a direct settings button found on the side.  While the button has always been there, it’s been for enabling WiFi.  Now, it’ll do both.  If you short-tap it, it’ll open up the settings menu for just that particular mode.  If you long-hold it, it’ll enable/disable WiFi.  It’s a beautifully elegant solution.

The same is true of photo modes, allowing you to then change how many shots it might take, and the resolutions of those.  It’s without question one of my favorite features of the Hero4 lineup. Of course, you can still dive into the traditional settings menu using the mode button, but now those options on the Black/Silver pertain more to whole-camera options.

For example, this is where you would change the orientation of the camera (Black/Silver/Hero), as well as change which mode the camera starts off in, for example, photo instead of video (Black/Silver).

In the February 2015 update, they also enabled the ability to do automatic orientation.  This means that the Hero4 Silver and Black can now automatically be oriented based on whichever way is determined as ‘up’.  You can also just leave it manually as well.

And, you can enable the ability to automatically shut off after a preset time.  I like 5 minutes, because that’s typically longer than I’d wait around for any action sequence to happen – and usually means that I’ve forgotten about the camera.  Since the GoPro doesn’t save too much battery sitting in standby versus recording – I prefer to keep it off as much as I can.

Also note that unlike the Black/Silver, the Hero base can’t have settings changed via the phone apps, but more on that later. Next, when it comes to actually record something, you’ll start/stop the recording (or photos) by pressing the top button on the GoPro (with the red circle).

And again, to stop it, you’ll just press the same button.  By default the unit will chirp/beep and then the red recording light will blink.  You can change the volume of the chirps.  I do that if I plan to use the unit indoors where the chirps can get a bit annoying (Side Note: I fail to understand why there is a 100% volume, 75% volume, and 0% volume level…but no 25% or 50% level).Outside of course, it’s handy to have the chirps though if mounted on a helmet. With those basics covered, let’s get onto the Silver-only touch screen, and then I’ll cover many of the features individually.

The GoPro Hero4 Silver sports a new addition to the Hero lineup, a touch screen.  While you could in the past attach a LCD screen to the back of units, it always came at the cost of increased space as well as just being sorta clunky.  With the Hero4 Silver though, it’s embedded into the back of the unit while remaining exactly the same size as previous models.

The screen is both there to display what the camera is shooting, but also to act as a touch screen to change settings.  To do so, you’ll press the little red dot and then slide down and hold a few seconds.  This ensures that you can’t accidentally bump it on, like butt dialing, but for action cameras (which, upon reflection could be really awkward).

Once you have it unlocked, it’ll show you a touch menu that you can go into and modify settings for each of the modes.  You effectively get all of the modification capabilities of the front LCD + buttons, with the back screen:

Now of course while recording, you can use this to frame your shots ahead of time and then keep an eye on things while recording.  By default it’ll shut off the screen shortly after recording to save battery. I’ve gotta say, when I first saw the marketing images of the screen I figured it’d be like the Garmin VIRB screen.  In that while the VIRB screen was marketed to look like a orgasmicly colorful experience, in reality it was like 1930’s black and white silent film.

Thankfully, the Hero4 Silver is legit color.  Brilliantly colorful and just as crisp and pretty as the marketing shots look.  It’s a bit tricky to take photos of because of the light differential between foreground and the LCD screen, but, you can get a little bit of a feel for it in some of the below:

And on top of that, it will playback sound as well.  When it comes to a screen on an action camera, this is perfect for me.  Or rather, for my wife.  I actually didn’t use it nearly as much as her – who loved being able to see exactly what she was shooting and play it back without a phone (as was the case with her cannonballs seen later).

Now with all that praise, do keep in mind one thing: For most folks, the screen is merely used for framing a shot.  So while the color is much appreciated, I wouldn’t say it’s a complete deal-breaker.  I’m able to frame shots on the 1930’s style black and white screen VIRB just as easily as the Hero4 Silver.

When it comes to video quality in an action cam, nobody has higher resolutions than the GoPro.  Period, end of story.  Well, at least today. So what does that mean from a practical standpoint?  Well with the Hero3+ Black, GoPro offered 2.7K at full frame rates.  In this case, full frame rates are anything above 24FPS.  Below that and you’ll start to get degradation viewable to the human eye in most situations.  So in the case of the Hero3+ Black, it had 4K footage…but at 15FPS. With the Hero4, things simply shifted.  The Hero4 Black got full 4K at 24/25/30FPS, while the Hero4 Silver got 2.7K at 24/25/30FPS, and 4K at 12.5/15FPS.  So basically, the following happened:

As you can see, it’s a crap-ton more pixels. But there’s a small catch: The computer you’re viewing this post on right now likely can’t even display 4K footage. 4K capable computer monitors are in the $800 (and Apple’s capable monitor/computer costs $2,500).  Although, 4K TV’s are much cheaper, starting around $400-$500US. So if nobody has these devices, why shoot 4K?

There are two reasons: First is simply to start collecting higher quality content knowing that over the next few years 4K resolution will become the norm.  But the second is more important: It allows you to crop to a lower resolution. This means that you can take 4K video and crop to a smaller portion of the image and then still maintain 1080p (or other lower resolution).

As you can see, I took the 4K video, but then cropped down just a chunk of it to 1080p.  Note that cropping is different than downscaling.  Cropping means you cut some of the image away.  Whereas with downscaling (aka ‘to downres’), you simply convert the entire video down to a lower resolution.  You don’t lose any of the picture, but you just lose quality. To explain some of the differences between the two resolutions, here’s a segment where I had all three cameras mounted side by side.  Here’s the Hero4 Black (be sure to set the resolution to 4K):

Can you tell the difference?  For most on smaller screens – probably not.  But that’s likely just because you’re viewing it on a device too small to notice the differences.  But, this is a key point in deciding whether or not it’s worth the money to pay extra for what is 4K/2.7K over just 1080p resolution found on every other device out there.

Of course, you’re not just paying for resolution – you’re also paying for low light performance.  Take for example this video shot in a night market in Thailand.  It’s a simple compilation of various food stalls shot at 4K.  Despite the low light conditions things came out quite nicely, and I was just hand-holding everything:

Now when it comes to resolutions, keep in mind that while GoPro has action cam dominance today, tomorrow that might change (hence why it’s always good to check out the Product Comparison Tool).  In general, I wouldn’t expect any changes between now and the end of 2014.  But I fully expect that to change starting with CES the first week of January.  CES is the annual and massive Consumer Electronics Show, where everyone in the gadget world comes out with their new stuff.

Typically speaking you don’t see new products available that same week – but rather announced at CES and then available in the months that follow.  I’d be happy to bet we’ll see a flood of 2.7K & 4K players announced then.  Of course, whether or not they’ll be any good is a totally different question.

In addition to high resolution video, the GoPro series can also do high speed video.  High speed video refers to the idea of increasing the frame rate (frames per second) recorded in order to then play it back at ‘regular’ speed and achieve a slow-motion effect.  Take for example 120FPS footage.  It’s captured (wait for it) at 120 frames per second.  But, when it comes to playback, it might be played back at 30FPS, which then results in that one-second moment of action taking 4 seconds to play back.  Thus achieving gloriously smooth slow-motion.  You can see this below with a Hero4 Black and a touchscreen attached.

With these higher frame rates at higher resolutions, you’re no longer having to make sacrifices in quality or frame rates for slow-motion footage. Like other settings, on the GoPro you can modify these within the app, or within the camera itself.  In the case of base GoPro Hero, you’re only getting 1080P-30FPS, or 720P-60FPS. The exact frame rates offered for each resolution I’ve included within the comparison table at the bottom of the review.

So what does this look like?  Well, no better way to test this than a canon ball into a swimming pool.  The perfect way to illustrate slow-motion, in this case with a common 120FPS 720p clip (from the GoPro Hero4 Silver):

Now I could have gone to 240FPS on the Hero4 Black, but that reduces the resolution.  Previous to February 2015 it was WVGA, but now it’s 720 – which makes it potentially a fair tradeoff.  Still, for those wanting to keep it 1080p or higher, you could instead look to slow it down further with the GoPro studio and take the hit on frame rates instead of resolution.  In this case, I went with 20% speed playback.

Note that the GoPro Studio offers the ability specify the exact moment in time that you switch from regular playback to slow-motion playback by simply splitting the clips.  This allows you to keep at normal speed until just the moment of action, such as this where I kept it regular rates for the first few seconds, then slowed it down when she was mid-air, and then let it get back to half-speed towards the last few seconds.

Further, GoPro has also introduced what they call ‘Flux’.  The idea behind it is a bit smarter interpolation of the frames when slowing down video, allowing you to get cleaner video.  In the above case I used Flux for the middle section of slow-mo, though, it’s not really required since I shot at 120FPS already and there was plenty of slow motion as-is. But it’s more noticeable if you really wanted to slow things down even further than that.

For example, if you wanted to turn what would have been 4-5 seconds at playback speed into 8-10 seconds.  In that case you’d lose so many frames that it might be tough to get smooth video. Note that Flux is all done after the fact within GoPro Studio, and is not something done on the camera itself.  It does not require you do anything on the unit itself.

Ultimately, the Hero4 lineup offers the most diverse options in the marketplace today when it comes to high speed frame rate offerings as well as higher resolutions at those frame rates.

The Hero4 introduced a new night capture mode to the lineup, which aims to compliment the other photo modes found within the unit.  Before we dive into the night mode, it’s probably good to start with a quick overview of all the major modes found on the Hero lineup:

Ok, with those basics out of the way, let’s get to some shots and how I use it.  In most cases, when I’m using the GoPro as a camera, I’m shooting in the highest possible megapixel arrangement with the wide option.  This is because the way the GoPro works is that even if you were to select a medium crop image, it’s simply taking the 12MP wide image and cropping that automatically.  Thus it’s much better to take the higher resolution and do the cropping yourself. For example, below if I wanted just the fish from this GoPro image, I could crop to just the fish and the sea anemone.

But what situations would you want medium over wide?  Well, for those where you didn’t want to deal with cropping.  For example, The Girl (aka, my wife), borrowed the GoPro Hero4 Silver for the day while snorkeling.  She didn’t want the super-wide shots that were coming in on wide mode, and instead preferred the zoomed in aspect of the medium mode.  For her, she’s not going to want to deal with cropping the photos afterwards on the computer or her phone.  She just wants to be able to take them and post them to whatever platform she wants – no editing.

Finally, let’s look at some night shots.  In this case, I used the Night Mode to get a longer exposure with the unit.  I toyed around with a few different exposures (aside from Automatic), but decided that a 2 second exposure worked out the best.  Here’s the un-edited shot from the Hero4 Black:

The GoPro series includes a time lapse mode.  In this mode the unit will take a series of photos at a preset interval, such as every half a second.  You can then take those photos and compile them together to make a video time-lapse. Alternatively, this mode is ideal when you want to simply have photos of/during an event, but don’t know when the moment of action will come (or won’t be in a position to press record).

For example, you might be mountain biking downhill and want to easily capture photos along the way (instead of video).  Just plop it in time lapse mode and it’ll capture photos at the defined interval. Why use this instead of video (and then take a screenshot)?  Well, the resolution is substantially higher with photos over video.  Further, you tend to get crisper photos this way. The GoPro series supports different intervals depending on the model.  Here’s the run-down for the 2014 series:

Next, you’ll need some software to turn these all into a pretty video.  Of course, if you don’t want a video, then you’re just done as-is. For the video, GoPro Studio enables you to drag the photos into the software and it’ll compile it into a video.

There’s two ways of doing this.  The first is to just drag the first photo in the series into GoPro studio (and it’ll do the rest automatically).  Or, you can manually put them all in a folder and then drag the folder in.  Whatever floats your boat:

With that, you can then adjust how fast playback will be.  At this point you’ll need to do a bit of mental math on how long you want the video to be.  In general, most times you’ll playback video at 24 or 30FPS.  In my case, I sped it up 5 times, as the original length was going to be 2 minutes and 20 seconds, which is an eternity sitting watching a single view out my hotel window.  So, 1/5th of that seemed appropriate.

However, with the February 2015 update for the GoPro Hero4 Black and Silver, it’ll now create that same video for you within the GoPro unit itself.  I’ll discuss that in the next section.

In February 2015, GoPro introduced a new time lapse mode that automatically exports out a video file when you end the recording of the time lapse.  This means that when you hit finish on the time lapse on the camera, you immediately have a video file – instead of a huge pile of photos that need additional processing.  This option was made available to only the Hero4 Black and Silver models, via a free firmware update.

When you look at the configuration options, they’re identical across both the Black and Silver units.  You’ll select ‘Time Lapse’ as an option under the Video settings.  Then within that you can select the interval for how often to take a photo to add to the video.

The Hero4 Black and Silver carry through the capability of being able to control and transfer data from the camera to the phone.  This allows you to use your phone as a secondary display for the camera, or, just a quick way to get photos up to share with friends via social media.  Note, this is not compatible with the 2014 GoPro Hero base unit.

To begin, you’ll need to enable WiFi on your Hero4.  Just hold down the left side button until the blue light blinks on the front of the GoPro.  Then, on your mobile device connect to the WiFi network.

You’ll need to go through a setup of pairing steps before moving forward.  They’re fairly straight forward and ensure that you have a unique name for each unit, and unique password. Once that’s done you can go ahead and open up the GoPro app and then click “Connect & Control” to start the connectivity to the GoPro.

It’ll start on the preview screen, which shows you the exact same view as that of the camera.  You can rotate the phone as well to get a cleaner view.

If you click the little tool icon, you can go into the settings and tweak every camera mode and overall camera settings quickly and easily.  This is great when you are taking iterative shots at different resolutions or frame rates and don’t want to mess with the camera or touch it physically.

Next, you can transfer both photos and videos.  To do this within the GoPro app you’ll tell it to enumerate the files.  It may take a few seconds.  Or, in the event you have a time lapse pile of photos – it may never actually complete at all (as I learned).  Thus, I wouldn’t recommend trying to enumerate it if you just took a few thousand photos.

Overall, while seemingly straight forward and potentially simple, the phone app capability on the GoPro app is actually exactly one of the best (if not the best) out there from an action cam perspective.  Some other action cams don’t allow live preview while recording, for example.  Or, they don’t permit you to transfer files.  Or, the apps are just poorly coded.

The same week that GoPro announced the Hero4 lineup, they in conjunction with Livestream announced the ability to stream your GoPro recordings live to the internet via the Livestream service.  This requires the use of your mobile phone, which connected to the GoPro via the GoPro WiFi network, and then streamed the data out via your cellular data connection.

Initially when I posted this review the functionality wasn’t yet enabled on the Hero4.  So, I did some expirements on the Hero3 instead,  which you can view here. Since then, the Hero4 support has been enabled with LiveStream.

But, instead of trying to cram it all into this post, I’ve written up a HUGE post on live streaming options for action cams.  I cover the GoPro in super-detail, along with numerous other options and apps.

The Hero4 Black and Silver include ports that you can use to stream both audio and video off of the device.  The ports are standardized, which means it’s fairly easy to utilize them (in comparison to some action cameras that have funky proprietary connections).

The first port you’ll find is the mini-USB port.  The primary use for most people will be charging the GoPro as well as transferring photos/videos to a computer.  Those are both fairly straight forward scenarios in that the GoPro will simply show up now as an imaging device on your computer (this is actually a change from previous lines, where it enumerated as a standard USB device):

But the mini-USB port is also capable of transmitting and consuming non-digital audio and video to other devices.  For example, you can connect the 3.5mm stereo audio connector cable to it, and then plug a microphone to it. Note on the audio connector, that this is only supported on the Hero4 Black/Silver (and older Hero3/3+ units).

Additionally there are some microphones that are only supported on the Hero4 Black Edition.  So you’ll want to double-check their compatibility list if you’re using a separate mic. Alternatively, you can utilize one of two different composite video cables.  One that includes the 3.5mm mic input, and one without it.  In either case, quite frankly most people won’t be doing this as it’s pretty crazy low resolution these days.

Lastly for the mini-USB, it can actually be used by some remote viewing systems directly.  For example, on the First Person View (FPV) system I have for my DJI Phantom2 unit, it plugs straight into the mini-USB port and transmits that video, no HDMI required (Note: At the moment, with the standard Zenmuse H3-3D system, this doesn’t quite work yet due to a bug on the Hero4 and/or Zenmuse).

Next, we’ve got the micro-HDMI port.  This port enables you to playback video and photos straight to a TV using an HDMI cable.  Note though that your regular HDMI cable likely won’t work here, since most HDMI cables you have around the house are standard HDMI connectors are both ends.  The micro-HDMI connector is on the GoPro end of the equation and much smaller.  You tend to see this also used in some tablets, such as the Microsoft Surface’s and some Android tablets.

There’s a fundamental reason why you see Hollywood shoot with the GoPro, and the core of that reason is ProTune and the flexibility offered within it.  ProTune is one such feature that has long been leveraged in GoPro units to offer more flexibility in editing afterwards.  It’s sorta similar (though not exactly) to the way that higher end photographers primarily shoot RAW photos for the ability to better tweak photos afterwards, people also shoot GoPro video with ProTune so they can easily tweak it afterwards.  When I talk to ‘tweaking’ I’m referring to the ability to drive change easily in things such as White Balance, ISO, Sharpness and more.

For example, virtually all of the photos you see here on the blog (not just in this post, but all posts) I shoot with higher end cameras in dual JPG/RAW formats.  This allows me to clean them up in Lightroom and make any color/lighting corrections as required.  The same applies here with GoPro cameras using ProTune with the GoPro Studio. Now this doesn’t actually just apply to video in the case of GoPro, but also to photos.  So you have that same power there too.

Now, GoPro notes there’s no downside to enabling ProTune.  It won’t make your images/video ‘require’ additional tuning.  So you might as well enable it and then decide later if you need it in post production. A better question is whether or not having (or not having) ProTune is a deciding factor.

The GoPro 2014 series all include waterproof cases that protect the unit down to 40 meters (131 feet).  This is pretty much the max for what a standard openwater PADI/NAUI certified diver would go to (by a little bit).  And of course fine for snorkeling and other random pool activities. In the slim chance you’re diving deeper than that, you can get a more hardened case that goes 60m (197 feet). In my case, I didn’t have any dives on my radar for this time period, so it was just limited to snorkeling and pool time.  In both cases, I had no problems.

Since the change a few years ago to the flat glass on the dive housing you’ll no longer have any issues with focus problems out of the box.  Here’s some non-edited images from the unit (Hero4 Black):

Now what is notable is that there’s no water protection issues using the touch screen capable case underwater at least at snorkeling/pool depths.  However, you won’t want to try and use the touch screen underwater as the pressure will make it impossible to use.  Instead, just use the regular buttons on the side/front/top to change any settings or take any photos.

Note that while I didn’t use any of the corrective color filters, you can get such filters, especially if doing diving with the GoPro, which will help correct the colors a bit.  For snorkeling and pool shots, you can easily adjust them in the GoPro Studio as well, though I find that leaving a bit of the blueish tint at shallow depths tends to make the images pop a bit more.  It’s when deeper that you lose the colors that you want to use the filters.

Finally, in the event you’re doing a lot of water sports, you may want to look at picking up the floating door accessory.  That will keep the GoPro afloat in the event it departs from your grasp.  If you’re just doing snorkeling or in a pool it’s a bit unnecessary, but if you’re constantly out on openwater it’s probably worth it.

When it comes to battery life, the Hero4 series took a bit of a dive at the top end unit.  In previous generations you’d get about 1hr 30 minutes of run-time at the highest recording settings.  Now however, the Black unit gets only about 65 minutes at the highest settings. Which isn’t to say that battery life went down across the board.  No, if you go to more minimal settings – such as 2.7K 30FPS on the Silver, it’s clocking in around 1hr and 50 minutes.  Yet, on the Black it still only gets 1hr 10mins at that setting, despite sharing the same battery.  The majority of settings for the Black put it in the 1hr 5min to 1hr 10min range, with only 720p 120FPS extending it up to 1hr 50min.  All of these though assume WiFi is off.  Both the Hero4 Black and Silver share the same 1106mAH battery.

Meanwhile, continuing the trend of apparently cheaper units getting better battery – the 2014 Hero base units can hit 2hr and 45 minutes at 1080p 30FPS, more the twice that of the Hero4 black at 1/4th the cost.  Go figure.

Now, about the only complaint I have about said Hero base unit is that because of the non-detachable case design I’ve found it’s easier for the unit to get turned on during travel in a bag than the Black/Silver out of their cases.  And unlike the Black/Silver, it doesn’t have the option to automatically turn off after a period of inactivity.  Thus, I’ve had more situations where the Hero base is out of juice when I go to use it.

In my testing with the battery life on the Hero4 Black, I found it got just a few minutes below the specifications.  Though, I also found that even while in standby you’re unlikely to get too much more battery if left on (but not recording), which is a bit different than other action cameras on the market that do a much better job in standby.

Now one accessory I have found handy though is the dual battery charger.  It connects via standard mini-USB cable and then will charge your GoPro batteries.  Note that it works best with a 2AMP USB port, such as those found with an iPad or other tablet.  So if you use just a regular amperage USB port you’re likely to get slow charge times. When you insert the battery in, it’ll show orange for charging, and green for completed.  Note though that it can be easy the first time to not push the battery in all the way and think it’s doing something.  The simple rule is if there’s no light, it’s not doing jack.

Now, here’s a bit of a secret though: While the above charger is nice…it’s also overpriced.  So instead, I bought the below dual-charger from Wasabi Power which costs only $23 and that includes two Hero4 batteries.  Seriously.  Pure awesome.

When it comes to accessories, there’s no greater selection than that with the GoPro lineup.  Heck, even other action cams now include GoPro adapter mounts, simply to be able to tap into the massive range of accessories and mounts found within the GoPro lineup.  The majority of mounts that most folks will use will likely be 1st party mounts made by GoPro, but there’s still a huge array of 3rd party mounts by other companies that are oftentimes far more interesting.

1) GoPro 3-way Pole: This came out last winter and instantly became my favorite accessory.  As you can see from the below animated image I put together, you can twist/mix/fold/unpack/pack it up a crapton of ways.  I can use it as a tripod, or as a selfie pole, or just to get a better angle and extend my reach.

In my case, I bought the DJI Phantom 2 last winter and have been experimenting with it to get cool shots and videos. From a setup perspective, I use the GoPro Hero4 with the DJI Phantom 2 in conjunction with the Zenmuse H3-3D gimbal.  This gimbal is really the special sauce that allows silky smooth footage.  Proof of that comes with the fact that the wind was never less than 10-15MPH during my flights in New Zealand.

There were two H3-3D gimbal versions out there – the first gimbals require a slight modification to not bump the side settings/WiFi button on the Hero4, whereas the second generation is molded just a hair bit differently and doesn’t require any modification.  Luckily I have the second version.

Note that both the Hero4 Black/Silver work just fine in the mount, but the Hero base edition won’t because it can’t be removed from the case. While I have a first person view transmitter for the system, I don’t tend to use it too much, instead just flying within line of sight and by feel.  I flew remote control and real planes when I was younger, so I have a bit of experience there in the aviation world.

Of course, with a gimbal video is the name of the game.  While down in New Zealand over the past few weeks I was able to get a number of shots put together. Here’s one session I did just after sunrise on an isolated black sands beach with the Hero4 in 4K/24p mode:

You can use the below comparison charts to see how each unit stacks up against each other.  In the below chart I’ve just set it for the three GoPro units for 2014.  However, you can easily dive into the comparison database to see how older GoPro units stack up, as well as some competitor units.  You can mix and match and create your own charts there.

Best video quality money will buy in an action cam: For those in this category, there’s simply no question it’s the Hero4 Black.  Specs alone dictate this, and thankfully the camera backs up the specs from a delivery standpoint.  There’s just no other action cameras on the market today doing 4K at full frame rates (Correction: There’s apparently this camera, but it’s pretty wonky being two separate pieces).

Of course, the real question is – does this matter?  For most people, probably not.  You’d likely be hard pressed on today’s screens to tell the difference between 1080p and 4K, let alone 2.7K and 4K.  Still, for the reasons I outlined in the 4K section above, there’s certainly value in such a camera.

An all around action cam: For this, it’s tricky.  On one hand the GoPro Hero4 Silver is solid, but at the same time, it’s also a bit overpriced compared to other offerings.  They effectively bumped up the price to $399 from what was sub-$300 before.  At that price you’re paying double something like the VIRB Elite or Sony Action cams, but of which have more features/functionality (i.e. sensors like GPS, altimeters, etc…).  Sure, the Hero4 Silver can do 2.7K video at full frame rates, but for most people, that won’t matter.

A budget action cam:This is where things get really interesting.  GoPro dropped the bottom of the price floor with the $129US price point.  That’s an incredible price, especially for such a quality cam as the Hero base.  At the same time, Garmin more or less countered with VIRB units now at $129US, and flirting every few days with $99US.  The VIRB base unit is more functional in every possible spec category than the 2014 Hero base (or equal in those not exceeding).

Mount considerations: There’s no question that GoPro has the most mounting options out there when you include 3rd party mounts.  But I wouldn’t let that be the deciding factor.  Virtually every other action cam on the market includes a GoPro mounting adapter, so that kinda becomes a wash.

Availability of accessories: When it comes to finding spare parts like a battery pack during a trip, you’ll find no wider availability than GoPro parts though.  In every airport on this planet and in just about every terminal of those airports, you’ll find GoPro parts.  I was blown away over the past month as I travelled to find that Hero4 parts and cameras were easily accessible in all sorts of random places around the globe, airport or just shopping plaza – mere weeks after launch.

Editing Tools: GoPro’s offering is good (not great, but good), and makes it relatively easy to edit videos.  On the flip side, you can edit GoPro footage in most other software video apps – many of them free.

Mobile Apps: When it comes to phone apps, GoPro’s is far and away the best.  While most allow you to change settings, not all other companies allow streaming of content or transferring of photos and videos, all quickly and easily.  This can be a major benefit when you’re trying to get content somewhere quickly and share it.  Further, the quick turning on/off of WiFi via a solid button press on the Silver/Black is awesome.  It’s just quick and painless.

Hero4 Silver Touchscreen: This is cool, no doubt, but at the same time, for my particular use cases it’s less important.  Usually if I’m mounting a camera to a bike or to my helmet, I can easily check framing via the GoPro mobile app display.  And the same goes for playback via the phone app.  On the flip side, my wife loved the screen and much preferred having that unit over the other GoPro’s, purely because of the screen.

Battery: While the Hero4 Silver and base have good and competitive battery life, the Hero4 Black’s battery life is just downright bad.  Only an hour?  It’s somewhat ironic as the target audience for that model is likely to shoot more video than the lower models.  Still, you can relatively easily solve that with extra spare batteries.

Ultimately I’d say the decision to go Black will simply pivot on whether you care about 4K video or not. Ultimately, you’ll have to balance the pros and cons of each of the components, along with price, and figure out what unit works best for you and the set of circumstances you’ll use it for.

Like previous years, GoPro has continued to raise the bar on action cameras from a specification standpoint – in particular, within the resolution and video/photo quality department.  That aspect alone will no doubt make it a must have for those wanting the best video quality money can buy in an action cam.

Meanwhile at the budget end of the spectrum, they’ve forced other companies to slash prices to compete with the new $129US GoPro Hero.  While this unit isn’t as full featured as other competitive products that are now priced the same or less, it is a rock solid option.

The next year will no doubt be interesting to watch for GoPro, especially going into CES with what will undoubtedly unleash a slew of new action cameras into the market.  With GoPro pushing prices up $100 on their two top units, I’m not fully convinced that the bulk of consumers will follow to the higher end.

I think their base model is brilliant, but selling the Silver model at $400 will be a hard push to the mid-market.  Meanwhile, at least until new competitors get out there, the Black model will likely hold (and rightfully so) the top spot for the upcoming winter.

I’ve partnered with Clever Training to offer all DC Rainmaker readers exclusive benefits on all products purchased. You can read more about the benefits of this partnership here. You can pickup the GoPro units through Clever Training using the links below. By doing so, you not only support the site (and all the work I do here) – but you also get to enjoy the significant partnership benefits that are just for DC Rainmaker readers. And, since this item is more than $75, you get free US shipping as well.

Additionally, you can also use Amazon to purchase the GoPro units or accessories (though, no discount). Or, anything else you pickup on Amazon helps support the site as well (socks, laundry detergent, cowbells). If you’re outside the US, I’ve got links to all of the major individual country Amazon stores on the sidebar towards the top.

There"s good reason why GoPro is synonymous with action cameras: Its models deliver the best overall performance. The Hero4 Black is GoPro"s premier cam, and it mostly earns that title, with detailed image quality, steady-looking video and true 4K/UHD recording (up to a best-in-class 30 frames per second). GoPro also offers advanced recording modes with tools for professional photo and video editing. But there are some compromises — primarily the hefty price, but also the lack of a touchscreen (which the cheaper Hero4 Silver has). Ultimately, though, if you really want 4K recording, this is the action camera to get.

The Hero4 Black continues the now-classic GoPro design – a solidly built block measuring 2.3 x 1.1 x 1.6 inches and weighing just 3.1 ounces. But that"s misleading, as you"ll need to place it in a protective case that provides a mount, some ruggedizing and waterproofing, bringing it up to 2.8 x 2.6 x 1.5 inches and 5.4 ounces (There are lighter case options, though.)

In its protective case, the GoPro Hero Black (or any GoPro) is well protected against pretty serious shocks, as I learned after wrecking my mountain bike while testing it. The case also makes it waterproof to SCUBA-grade depth of down to an impressive 40 meters (about 131 feet). But beware GoPro"s scary warning in the user manual: "Keep the camera housing’s rubber seal clean. A single hair or grain of sand can cause a leak and damage your camera."

Unlike the cheaper $399 Hero4 Silver, the Black doesn"t have a touchscreen LCD, so you’re forced to contend with a lot of button presses using the Power/Mode, Settings/Tag and Shutter/Select button and a tiny 0.8-inch monochrome screen. The layout of the menus and use of the keys is logical, but is tedious to navigate.

Fortunately, GoPro"s wireless smartphone app (Android, iOS and Windows Phone) is a great alternative. Wi-Fi pairing to the camera"s built-in hotspot was fast and reliable. The app quickly connected, and stayed connected, to the camera.

Overall, the Hero4 Black and (if you don"t need 4K) the Hero4 Silver provide just about the best video quality among a half-dozen action cameras we tested — tied with Sony"s action cameras, like its 4K model, the FDR-X1000V. GoPro does not overdue color saturation or contrast. That may make the video look a bit flat, but the trade-off is more fine detail in colors and shading. I could make out individual leaves on trees and blades of grass in the fields on a mountain-biking trip outside San Francisco, for example.

GoPro cameras don"t have image stabilization – optical or digital – so if the camera shakes, so does the scene. But shaky video didn"t have the wobbly, Jell-O-like appearance I saw from lesser cameras.

Low-light image quality was lackluster. My street in Brooklyn is admittedly quite dark at night, but the GoPro shot some of the least-useful video among the models I was testing.

Sound quality was pretty poor, as the case obscures the built-in mic. Action photography doesn"t necessarily need audio, and some enthusiasts will lay a soundtrack over clips of their awesome skateboarding or surfing moves – nor would you hear much underwater, anyway. But if you are recording something, like a family gathering or a street performer, where sound is critical, opt for the open Frame mount ($40) and, if you don"t mind more gear, add an external mic.

The Hero4 Black doesn"t feature any built-in storage, but it can accept microSD cards up to 64GB, enough to hold about 4 hours and 40 minutes of 1080p/60fps or 2 hours and 20 minutes of UHD/30fps video. GoPro publishes a list of recommended cards(opens in new tab).

The Hero4 Black (and some other GoPros) can send video to a Wi-Fi connected smartphone or tablet running an app such as Livestream or Meerkat, which convey the stream right to the Web. Livestream added the option to its iOS app in late 2014 to select a Wi-Fi connected GoPro instead of the built-in iPhone or iPad camera as the video source. (Meerkat, another streaming service, also can accept GoPro streams right from its iOS app.) Videos on your Livestream channel have about a 10-second delay.

If you already use Livestream or Meerkat, a GoPro Black could be a handy addition to your gear. If not, the best way to start sharing your GoPro video may be the old fashioned method of picking the best clips and posting them to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or some other site. Unless you are covering breaking news, your videos will probably be more enjoyable for viewers when posted after you"ve trimmed them down to the best parts.

Action cams, especially GoPros, are all about the accessories(opens in new tab), as you will need different cases and mounts depending on what--and where--you shoot. The standard kit I tested comes with the waterproof housing, a curved mount (say, for a bicycle helmet) a flat mount (say, for a car hood), and a three-way pivot arm so you can point the camera in pretty much any direction. GoPro also sells versions with special mounting hardware for surfing or musical instruments (for your own music videos).

The $80 LCD Touchback(opens in new tab) touchscreen module is well worth it, as the controls on the camera itself.are hard to navigate. If you are happy controlling the GoPro Hero4 Black wirelessly, though, stick with the smartphone app, unless you want to control the camera while in motion, such as to snap a photo or start and stop recording. For this purpose, it"s much safer (for you and your phone) to use the $80 wireless(opens in new tab)SmartRemote. Extra batteries sell for $20 each, and for $50, you can get an extra battery and the Dual Battery Charger for topping off two cells at once.

The GoPro Hero4 Black offers top-notch performance. And it"s worth the price under certain conditions: If you want to shoot 4K video or are an image aficionado who would like to make extensive edits to photos or videos. If are less fussy, though, you can do well with a cheaper camera, such as the $399 GoPro Hero4 Silver or even some budget models such as the $200 Kodak Pixpro SP1. But if you’re looking for the best there is, the GoPro Hero4 Black can’t be beat.Today"s best GoPro HERO4 BLACK 4K Action Camera deals

Their newest camera has just hit the market, and we have been busy putting it to the test to bring you this comprehensive GoPro HERO 10 review! Find our what all the new features are, where it shines (and where it doesn’t), as well as an honest opinion on whether the GoPro HERO10 is worth the upgrade.

We live and breathe photography, videography, and most of all, adventure. So of course once this new camera hit the market we had to dive into the specs and use it out in the real world to bring our expert GoPro HERO10 Black review.

There are two slogans for the GoPro HERO 10 Black this year. The first is ‘A New Era’, which is a pretty massive claim for a company that has been at the leading edge of action sports cameras for over a decade.

The GP2 on the GoPro HERO10 brings about some enormous upgrades around things like frame rates and overall performance, while the general features like photo and video modes stay mostly the same as the previous model.

SPECIAL DEAL: GoPro has an incredible special on their new camera right now, and you can save a huge $210 on the fantastic ‘HERO10 Black + Accessories’ bundle deal by clicking on the button below, or save $150 on just the HERO10 camera. This special is for a limited time only, so check it out while it’s available.

A New Era of GoPro is here and that means there are a whole string of new features and upgrades when you compare the HERO10 with the HERO 9 Black action cameras.

Here are some of the new and major features of the HERO 10 Black. The number of practical changes this year isn’t as many as previous years, but the quality of improvements and technical upgrades are incredible.

Even though the GoPro HERO9 last year finally revealed a new upgraded 23 megapixel sensor, using the old processor meant that it could only achieve 20 megapixels.

Compared to the HERO9, the GoPro HERO10 Black now has double the performance and double the frame rate across all of the higher resolution video modes.

It is now twice as smooth when reviewing footage and using live preview on the front LCD screen, and the rear LCD touchscreen interface is incredibly responsive.

And to top it all off, it’s just overall much, much faster to use. It’s quicker to launch, quicker to start taking photos and videos, and touch sensitivity is more responsive.

If this was the only improvement we found in our GoPro HERO10 review, we’d already be singing its praises and telling you that you need to stop what you’re doing and order one now. But of course, there’s more…

But if you’re a professional user, we recommend shooting in RAW mode to full make the most out of the 23 megapixels the GoPro HERO 10 boasts with image quality.

This isn’t necessarily something that we’d consider pushes GoPro into a ‘new era’, but it’s been a massive annoyance for us for years and are so glad they’ve improved it.

GoPro photos and videos have always looked great when shooting on bright, sunny days. But they’ve often fallen apart when it comes to low light situations, such as dawn, dusk or indoors.

Noise and grain isn’t so much of a problem now, and details are fantastic, even in low light. It may seem minor, but it was something we really wanted to highlight in our GoPro HERO10 review.

Well GoPro practically killed off their own product when they introduced HyperSmooth into the HERO7, their own version of digital image stabilization.

The video footage is just as buttery smooth as HyperSmooth3.0, except now they’ve increased the in-camera horizon* levelling to cover 45 degrees instead of the previous 27 degrees.

HyperSmooth 4.0 now also works on 5.3k30, 4k60 and 2.7k120, bringing near-perfect image stabilization to much higher resolutions and frame rates, even when doing shaky activities such as mountain biking, running or skiing.

The touch screen is a lot smoother and more responsive, and this was actually our biggest gripe with the HERO9. While it looked great, the touch screen was very frustrating to use. Not an issue any more on the HERO10.

It may have taken more than a decade of versions to figure out, but finally the GoPro HERO10 Black is on par with professional expectations with how it performs day to day.

The camera itself is great, but what has always set GoPro apart from other companies is the sheer number of accessories you can attach to them, allowing you to use the camera in just about any situation you can set your imagination to.

Besides the dazzling array of random accessories like suction cups, selfie sticks, dive housings, clamps, helmet and board mounts and plenty more, it’s the ‘Mods’ of the last few years that have helped turn the GoPro cameras into a versatile beast.

Then there are the Light Mod (adds a light, surprise surprise) for when shooting indoors or at night, and a Display Mod, which adds another screen so you can see yourself, but the latter is kind of redundant now thanks to the front-facing LCD screen.

But before you rush out and buy one based on a bunch of fancy talk like GP2 processors and 5.3k60fps, how does the GoPro HERO10 Black actually perform in the real world?

The very first thing we noticed was that the camera fired up a lot faster than the HERO9, and the screen responsiveness did indeed seem a lot smoother and quicker.

The GoPro HERO10 LCD touch screen almost felt as smooth as our iPhone, which is pretty remarkable. So much so that it made us even more frustrated with the screen performance on the 9.

Then we fired up the standard video mode, shooting in 4K at 30fps with zero customisation, and started walking around filming to test the out-of-the-box HyperSmooth 4.0 and video quality.

One of the big things we noticed too was how much more quickly the GoPro captured and processed these images, especially in RAW mode, compared to the HERO9.

When we pulled the images up on Adobe Lightroom to check them out we were very impressed with the clarity and colour rendering that the GoPro produced.

Now we don’t want to go jumping the gun just yet, because GoPros have had freezing issues forever, even with every firmware update, but the fact that we haven’t experienced this yet may just mean that the new GP2 chip has finally rectified this massive problem. Hallelujah!

Overall the GoPro HERO10 Black handles like an absolute beast in the real world, and we will be using this new camera on every single shoot we do from now on.

Like we said at the beginning of this article – this is an HONEST GoPro HERO10 review. And being honest means we’re going to tell you exactly what we don’t like about the latest camera too.

Second is that there is no optical zoom on the GoPro HERO 10. You can utilise the digital zoom, and change the digital lenses between SuperView, Wide, Linear and Narrow, but there isn’t any real optical zoom there.

We would have love to see at least 2x optical zoom built in, because sometimes you just want a different perspective for your shots rather than the typical GoPro fish-eye look.

There is a Max Lens Mod, which widens the point of view, so it makes us wonder if at some point GoPro can create a switchable lens that crops in. But at this stage you’re stuck with the digital options.

Other than that there really isn’t anything glaring at us that we dislike in our GoPro HERO 10 Black review. But if we notice anything as time goes on we’ll be sure to return to this article and update it.

Now that we’ve dove deep into what’s new, what we like (and what we don’t) in this GoPro HERO 10 Black review, you may be wondering whether it’s worth upgrading your camera, if you have an older model.

As you can see, the GoPro HERO 10 Black on the surface appears to be similar to previous models, using quite a lot of the same features, but it’s under the hood that everything sees improvements.

You’ve read through our review, have a solid understanding of the new features and capabilities of the GoPro HERO10, and if you haven’t already made a decision on whether to buy it or not, we’re going to help you out right now.

If you don’t already have a GoPro and are wondering whether or not you should bite the bullet and get one, then 100% yes, the HERO10 is worth the money!

You can literally connect your camera to the GoPro Quik app on your phone, wirelessly sync your footage, edit photos, make videos (using their ready-to-go templates), and in a matter of minutes you have epic content ready to upload straight to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or Facebook as soon as you have an internet connection!

Every part of the camera has been given an upgrade, and especially for people who like to vlog or take selfies, you’ll find the front LCD display a huge game changer over the HERO 8.

In previous years we have always said that if you are using the previous GoPro camera, then unless you’re a professional user, it’s not worth upgrading.

You’ve made it to the end of our GoPro HERO10 review, and considering the features, quality, durability, size, design, ease of use and of course the price, we’ve decided to give it a massive 9/10.

Thanks very much for reading our GoPro HERO10 Black review. If you have any questions please leave a comment below and we’ll answer them as soon as possible.

The GoPro HERO10 is a huge upgrade over the HERO9 thanks to the brand new GP2 processor, which doubles the performance, speed, responsiveness and frame rates of the camera over the previous model.

If you have the 8 model or earlier, or use your GoPro more than twice a week, then it is definitely worth upgrading to the GoPro HERO10 to make full use of the new GP2 processor.

With the new 23mp sensor being powered by the GP2 processor and full RAW capabilities, the GoPro HERO 10 is a fantastic camera for taking still photos.

We break down every spec, feature and comparison with previous models in our honest GoPro HERO 10 review by taking it out the field and testing if its worth...

GoPro, Inc.GoPro and sometimes stylized as GoPRO) is an American technology company founded in 2002 by Nick Woodman. It manufactures action cameras and develops its own mobile apps and video-editing software. Founded as Woodman Labs, Inc, the company eventually focused on the connected sports genre, developing its line of action cameras and, later, video editing software. It is based in San Mateo, California.

On May 19, 2014, GoPro filed its Form S-1 with the SEC without specifying the number of shares or their price. The company stated that they hoped to raise at least $100 million through the sale of shares, using the money to pay off debt in full ($111 million as of March 31, 2014) and "to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, technologies or assets". They said that they planned to list on the NASDAQ stock exchange using the symbol "GPRO."

The expected price range was $21 to $24 a share; on June 25, 2014, GoPro sold 17.8 million shares to initial investors at $24 per share (totaling $427.2M).

One reason for GoPro"s decision to go public was the potential to become a media company to generate additional revenue from the content its cameras create.

Woodman worked on his first camera for two years after founding the company, eventually introducing the GoPro 35mm HERO in September 2004 at San Diego"s Action Sports Retailer trade show.

In 2014, the company was selling the HERO3+ in editions of different colors. It was capable of filming in 16:9 aspect ratio, supporting 4K UHD video and 12 MP still photographs.

On September 28, 2017, GoPro released the HERO6 Black, which claims improved stabilization over the HERO5 models and is capable of capturing 4K video in 60 FPS.

On September 20, 2018, GoPro came out with the HERO7 Black, which apart from providing improved stabilization over HERO6 models with HyperSmooth, also featured the new form of video capturing, "TimeWarp", providing a high speed effect to the videos. HERO7 also came out with capability to stream live across multiple platforms like Facebook and YouTube .

On October 15, 2019 GoPro released the Hero8 Black, which included improved in-camera stabilization by way of Hypersmooth 2.0. The Hero8 Black introduced integrated mounting "fingers" which could be folded down for use, and was also notable for not having an easily replaceable lens available from GoPro, though a third party replacement lens kit is available from a company called Camera Butter.

In 2014, GoPro entered into discussions with DJI for a private label model built with the GoPro branding. After the failure of these negotiations, GoPro entered into an agreement with 3D Robotics (3DR) for a similar partnership based on 3DR"s fligh