GoPro - HERO8 Black 4K Waterproof Action Camera - Black

=== Summary === The GoPro Hero 8 is one of those slam-dunk products that exceed your expectations and live up to all the PR marketing hype. It is small and light, ergonomically pleasant to use, and it produces high-quality 4K 60FPS videos with excellent stabilization and clear audio recordings. Even its photography is great, especially of low-light scenes. With its water-resistance and sturdy build, plus the vast accessory ecosystem behind it, the Hero 8 is THE action camera to get. _____ *Pros: -Small, pocketable size. -Light and easy to handle. -Folding-finger design is brilliant, allowing for quick mount changes. -Solid build quality. -Responsive button and touchscreen controls. -Bright & crispy screen. -Simple to connect to smartphone & PC (has USB-C port!) -HyperSmooth 2.0's video stabilization is superb. -4K 60FPS video is awesome - vibrant & moderately saturated colors, great HDR effect, and smooth playback. -Audio recording is clean & clear and filters out background noise very well. -Has lots of nice & useful features, such as TimeWarp, Night Lapse video, 1080P live streaming. -Low-light photography is surprisingly very good. -Water-resistant out-of-the-box. -Lots of available accessories. _____ *Neutral: -Battery life isn't that good when recording 4K60FPS with screen always on. -As expected, during very low-light conditions, video becomes grainy - slight to quite a bit. Still, very capable & acceptable quality. _____ *Cons: -None === Design & Build Quality === I'm impressed by all the cool tech GoPro has managed to cram inside the Hero 8 Black in such a light and small footprint. Despite its low weight, the build materials and quality are excellent, and the camera feels substantial and durable in hand. The "folding-finger" mount design is cool, and it allowed me to quickly make attachment changes between my hand-held grip mount and hat mount. The layout of the two main buttons are ergonomically located, and they're tactile and quick-reacting. With the Hero 8 turned on, pressing the Power/Mode button on the left side quickly toggles among three modes - Time lapse, Video, and Photo. From there, you can use the responsive touchscreen to either use a preset video or photo profile or create your own. GoPro offers lots of options for video and photo fine-tuning, which will surely be appreciated by the vlogging and other enthusiast groups who demand extra control over their video and photo outputs. As for me, I just used the regular standard profiles -- 4K 60FPS with HyperSmooth video stabilization on for video and Wide lens with HDR applied for photo. I found several settings to be both very nifty and useful, one of them being QuikCapture. With this feature activated, I can start recording a video right away by pressing the capture button just once, even with the Hero 8 in an off state. There is a slight lag of about 1 & 1/2 seconds but that's totally acceptable for me. Voice control is another setting I really liked. Instead of pressing & holding the power button to turn on and off the Hero 8, I can just do it with my voice. You can also take pictures, record videos, change between modes, and start time lapses. It found it to be highly convenient and useful. In order for voice control to work reliably, however, the device had to be pretty close to my mouth - about 8 inches away. Also, voice control led to a faster battery drain. Being able to change the screen saver behavior is another cool option. By default, the screen turns off after a couple of minutes to save battery life. If you'd rather see the video you're recording without the screen going dark, then you can do that by simply turning off screen saver altogether. I find this useful when I'm recording with my hand-grip mount. If I'm recording from my hat, then I set the screen to turn off after 1 minute. As for everything else, it was smooth sailing. The Hero 8 easily connected to my Galaxy S10+ phone via the mobile app, as well as my laptop via a USB-C to USB-C connection. The battery cover is easy to open and close and the battery slides out smoothly without a struggle. All in all, GoPro has done a fantastic job crafting the Hero 8 and making it so ergonomic, feature-rich, and intuitive to control and use. === Performance === The Hero 8 is my first GoPro device but not my first action camera. Before getting the Hero 8, I've been depending on my Rylo 360 action cam for outdoor outings and sporty activities. After doing a side-by-side comparison with the Rylo and also comparing it to the video output of my Galaxy S10+, I got to hand the win to the Hero 8. The 4K 60FPS videos it output were fantastic! The videos were crisp, well-saturated, and buttery smooth. The brighter the scene, the nicer and smoother were the videos. During low-light conditions, some grainness did creep in, as expected, but the videos were still very usable and acceptable. Sudden motion transitions are handled very well with minimal artifacts. On the Rylo and Galaxy S10+, snapping the camera quickly from left to right would sometimes produce large video artifacts. The Hero 8 manages such trasitions very well. GoPro's older video stabilization tech may have been disappointing, according to some reviews I've read, but the Hero 8's new HyperSmooth 2.0 stabilization delivers the goods. I was quite surprised by the audio quality of the Hero 8. It did a fantastic job filtering out wind and background noise. Even with the Hero 8 mounted on top of my hat, it picked up audio from myself and from my subjects 30 to 40 feet away very clearly. The quality of the night-time photos was a HUGE pleasant surprise. I frankly didn't expect much and I was prepared not to be disappointed because, I figured, this is just an action cam and not a smartphone after all. After taking many low-light photos, I was impressed that is $400 action cam could take pictures almost as well as my >$1,000 smartphone. I've attached 3 pictures to my review - 1st pic is by the Hero 8, 2nd one is from my S10+ in normal Auto mode, and the 3rd pic is from the S10+ using Night mode. It's the same scene at same lighting conditions. === Is it worth it? === Most definitely. $400 is a fair price for all the nice technology and features you get from the Hero 8 Black. Its video stabilization is supreme, its 4K 60FPS HDR video quality is super smooth and crisp, and it even takes really nice low-light photos. Plus it's water-resistant, small and light, and the Hero 8 is supported by a large accessory ecosystem to meet the demands of a diverse group of people. 5 Stars Win~!!

I haven’t splurged on a good action camera yet, have used some cheaper knockoffs “which actually work really well”, but never really needed anything more till I saw the new Hero 8 was out and it had image stabilization built in. Decided it was time to give a higher end unit a shot. Unboxing: The camera is boxed in a clear topped display box showing off the camera really nicely and pretty much the same as all the other models. Inside there’s a mount that you have to unclip from the base of the box, a stick on base mount, USB-C cable and instruction manual, pretty basic nothing else in the box. The camera itself feels firm and heavy duty, no give anywhere, almost like a solid chunk of metal feel to it. The side edges around the screen and front are covered in a satin rubbery feeling material, while the rest has a satin gray/black metallic finish. Setting up: I immediately opened the battery door, where the USB C, SD slot also reside and plugged in the camera to my USB charger and let it charge up before using. I did notice it got pretty warm while charging but not overly hot and only took around an hour to charge. The battery door will come off very easily by applying slight pressure upwards till it comes off; this makes it very convenient for removing the battery or trying to get the SD card in/out. After inserting an SD card I went through the menu and set the camera up. The touch screen although small is very responsive and didn’t have any problem getting all the initial settings put in. It then asked that I install the GoPro app on my phone which I did and then went through the rest of the setup on my phone. It also had a new Rom update and I let it go about updating that before continuing. Use: All I can say is wow; the video quality even set at 2k is simply amazing. We’ve been having fun using the Time Warp mode and driving around. Haven’t even gotten into the other settings that much since we’ve been enjoying this but from what I can see from the image quality in these videos we won’t be disappointed. I have taken a couple still shots with it, they aren’t as good as my cell phones images but they are perfectly acceptable, they even froze the water droplets coming out of our lawn sprinklers in the image. I’m not concerned about still image quality though as I’m intending to use this as a video camera only. Comparing the image quality to the cheap imported action camera is no match and with the stabilization on the image is so smooth and free of jitter I was just floored. Those Time Warp videos look every bit as good as the ones we’ve seen use on various channels on our 4k TV, just simply amazing. GoPro has really sold me on their cameras now and it would be very hard for me to go back to using a cheap imported knockoff.

My original reason for buying the GoPro Hero 8 Black was to create video content from my motorcycle. The camera is capable of so much more! Since it will take both video and still photos, including under water, it has replaced all of my other cameras. Wide range of settings precisely control the content. But you need to know. 1. No written instruction are included and the on-line Go Pro instructions are not for beginners. Thankfully, great third-party videos exist on YouTube. I bought mine about a month ago and am now just feeling confident in its operation, including content transfer. Once you learn how to operate the camera, its operation is straight forward. Plan to spend some time learning to use it. 2. Plan to spend some money on accessories, including at least one spare battery--it eats power. Mounts and cases are essential for usages. 3. Takes forever to upload video content. You will learn patience. 4. Plan to buy multiple SD cards so that you can upload content files via your computer without tying up your camera. 5. It works with Mac devices, but more steps and different apps are required.

GoPro has really been the most popular action camera for the past decade and its easy to see why. They continue to set higher marks and come out with better cameras with higher quality features. The Hero 8 is no exception and is a great product to own! PROS: - The Hero 8’s design is very familiar if you have had a previous GoPro model. However they made a few big improvements, mainly being the hinge for the battery/memory card & the permanent mount. It just feels so much sleeker overall because of this! - On the Permanent mount, I’m a big fan of this! It makes everything so much more accessible to not have to put it into a mount every-time you want to use it. That being said, you can still use a mount easily. Also if you are worried that the permanent mount my break, I don’t think it will but even if it did you can remove it and buy a replacement one easily. - At the time of this review, the Hero 8 Mods are not available but it’s something I am very excited about! Something that is a big plus as an addition in the future. - The use of the camera is just fantastic! It has the new HyperSmooth 2.0 which is very noticeable to not make any of your footage too shaky and feel very stable. I also like how you can utilize that on the 4K resolution as sometime cameras limit features on higher resolutions and frame rates. - I’m also a big fan of the different lenses as you can easily switch from narrow all the way to super wide. It’s becoming more common to see this in a lot of different cameras and I’m happy with it. - The Hero 8 also has Voice Control which is very hand to have. It’s just an easy way to give the GoPro commands without having to constantly being touching it. - Finally, the GoPro Hero 8 continues its tradition of being very rugged and do it all. You can bring it 33 ft deep in water, the lens has increased in impact resistance, and overall it has great impact resistance. Great for heavy hitters or just if you are clumsy! CONS: - I realize the limitations that GoPro has with its size and wanting to maintain high battery levels, but it would have been nice to have a larger display screen with smaller bezels on the backside. I think it would help make this item more high end and make for easier navigation with the touchscreen. - Overall I can’t find too much I do not like about this GoPro. Only other thing I can think of is accessories are important to get the best use out of this and they don’t come with it. But those are easy to find in stores or online. Also don’t forget to get a Memory Card that supports 4K HDR! BOTTOM LINE: - The Hero 8 is simply the best action camera you can buy. It’s perfect for something as simple as pictures or video taping Christmas morning, to something more complex like scuba diving & snowboarding, or for vloggers who live stream or run a YouTube channel. It really is a do it all camera at the highest quality!

This GoPro replaces my old Hero Session and there is quite a jump between the two cameras, especially quality. I am very happy with the Hero8. If there were any complaints I would have to say that the door is annoying. It keeps popping off, which is better than breaking off, but I also feel like one day it will come off and I will lose it. At least the door is replaceable. Also, importing the files to my computer using the cord takes ~2 hours but inserting the card takes about 2 minutes. I guess my usb port is slow, but this is also annoying. I have included a picture that I made with the GoPro. I stacked the images from a timelapse to create this image of the stars & lightning bugs. Really awesome!

I LOVE this camera. I considered the 9, but the specs on the 8 seemed to be what I was looking for, and wow, it met my expectations and absolutely exceeded them! I love the time warp, the stability is insanely impressive, and it's just a blast to film with. The only issue I've had with this awesome camera is that a minor, approximately three foot, drop ended up shattering the back led screen. Of course, this was heartbreaking, but it's in the hands of geek squad for now, and I can't wait to get it back. So, I'd recommend getting the warranty, it's just a good idea in case gravity decides to test you. I still give it 5 stars! It's worth it, and I'm beyond happy with the footage this little dude captures.

A GoPro is an essential part of the active life. You never know when you might want a photo of a brief scene, if your GoPro is on, you can replay and find beautiful moments of your ride, your walk, your jog. Mine has its permanent seat on the front of my bike. I can recount moments of joyful greetings by friends on my way or times when parents and children formed a meaningful scene. I recommend GoPro to anyone interested in candid remembrances of their journeys.

The stability of the camera is amazing! I had a few issues getting it to connect to my Samsung laptop, but it was fixed fairly quickly with tech support. Overall, just an awesome camera!