GoPro has taken a tiny box roughly the size of a Zippo lighter and turned it into something truly remarkable.
The Hero4 Black is the company's new flagship camera targeted at pros and anyone who wants the best damn video you can get from an action cam (more on that later) and is willing to pay for it. It costs $500 in the US and £370 in the UK. (Australian pricing wasn't immediately available, but the US price converts to around AU$570.)
The camera's processor is twice as powerful as its predecessor's, allowing you to record at up to 4K resolution at 30 frames per second. It can also do 1080p at 120fps, which can make for some very smooth video when shooting fast-moving scenes, as well as nice slow-motion clips.
Being the step-down model, the Hero4 Silver costs $400 or £290 (which converts to AU$460). It records video at up to 4K at 15fps, a more useful 2.7K resolution at 30fps, and perhaps more importantly 1080p and 720p at 60fps and 120p, respectively. If all those sound familiar, it's because they are what the Hero 3/3+ Black can do. So it seems with the Hero4 Silver you're essentially getting that model with a touchscreen.
That's right -- it has a built-in touchscreen on the back. You can use it to set up your shots or play them back, but you can also change settings with it instead of the tiny front display.
So, why did the higher-end Hero4 Black not get a touchscreen? According to a GoPro representative, the Black's new processor needed for the 4K/30p video gives off quite a bit of heat when pumping all those pixels and because of that, the touchscreen had to be dropped.
You'll still have Wi-Fi to connect to mobile devices (Android, iOS and Windows Phone are supported) and there's Bluetooth as well (both for the Black and Silver), which might mean you can use a Pebble watch to control the camera. And you can always buy the LCD BacPac that attaches to the back.
The screen is the only physical difference between the two new models, but there are a handful of design tweaks separating them from their predecessors.
GoPro has changed the battery size and design, which will probably be a bit of a rub if you have an older model. It no longer slides in the back, but drops into the bottom, which works just fine and makes swapping them out easier. But the battery change means you'll being buying new ones if you pick up a Hero4.
And you probably will want extra batteries. Generally, using anything above 1080p at 30fps -- in resolution, frame rates or both -- will shorten battery life (that goes for any camera, though). Burst shooting, high-speed time lapse, using wireless, these will cut into your time, too. It's basically the trade-off made in order to have a camera so small and light.
A change for the better is the new context-sensitive menu system. On the camera's right side, what was the Wi-Fi button on previous models is a Settings button. Press it and up comes just the settings for the mode that you're in.
That eliminates much of the seemingly endless button presses (and frustrating mistakes) that it would take to change resolution or turn on or off Protune or any other feature. If you've used other GoPro models it might take some time to adjust, but the experience is much better than it was.
That Settings button doubles as a "Hilight Tag" button. Going through hours of video looking for that one cool moment can be tedious. With the Hero4, you hit the button immediately after that cool moment happens and it's tagged so you can find it fast later. A new version of GoPro's wireless wrist remote will support tagging, too. Like the built-in screen, GoPro isn't the first to have a tagging feature, but nonetheless it's very welcome.
There are other new features including Night Photo and Night Lapse modes that let you adjust exposure up to 30 seconds for single shots and time-lapse photos. The cameras can shoot 12-megapixel stills in bursts of up to 30 frames per second. And GoPro's Protune setting that allows for manual control over color, ISO, exposure, and contrast is now available for photos as well as video.
But what you really want to know is how's the video, right?
Above is a sample video shot with the Hero4 Black, edited and exported with the company's free GoPro Studio software. (Note: There is no audio until the last 25 seconds of the video.) The quality is fantastic and the low-light and night scenes are particularly great given the size of the camera and its sensor. You can pick on their design, the battery life and the features, but the video looks like it's still the best in the category.
I'll have full reviews of the Hero4 Black and Silver soon with battery testing and, hopefully, I'll be able to post some raw video for download. The cameras hit stores and the company's website the first week of October in the US, and October 5 in the UK.
One last thing: GoPro also announced a new entry-level model simply called Hero. Priced at a very reasonable $130 or £100 (AU$150 converted), it's a stripped-down version of the Hero3 White Edition, capable of recording at 1080p at 30fps, and 720p at 60fps. Its battery is integrated, however, so there's no swapping out a new one to keep recording, and it doesn't have built-in Wi-Fi either.
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