I never avoid being a GoPro fan. When I was in college, my very good friend bought Hero 4 Black, and then I took the video to me. Since then, every generation of GoPro has been new. Will buy it yourself and use it heavily when you take a video every day.

But I never shun my place where GoPro is bored, unstable systems, frequent crashes, and updates that look like “squeezing toothpaste” once a year, when you save money every year. Carefully evaluate whether you really need that updated feature point.

Can GoPro launch a new product every year? From the last three years, it is definitely not counted. From Hero 6 to Hero 8, although the hard image quality parameters are not changed much, if you really use a sports camera, you will also be exposed to every new generation of GoPro from time to time. It is still very easy to find GoPro. The direction adjustment and optimization of this category of sports cameras.

But until DJI launched DJI Osmo Action earlier this year, it seems that GoPro’s monopoly has been broken.

I am very grateful to Dajiang for letting me experience Osmo Action before the product launch, and after I intuitively pointed out the problem of Osmo Action’s tolerance in image quality, they did not hide the problem. Overall, Osmo Action is still doing quite well, starting at a price of a thousand dollars lower than Hero 7, good anti-shake (doing well, but not strong Hero 7 Hypersmooth), the same good quality The quality of the image (the latitude is general), and more importantly, the morphological innovation of Osmo Action, that is, the screen on the side of the lens.

When Osmo Action was released, I mentioned in the evaluation that the small screen on the side of the lens was useless because the size was too small, but the subsequent long-term use proved that I was wrong at the time, Osmo Action Although the screen is small, you can still see your own viewing range in Vlog, and you can estimate whether your exposure is a problem.

There was a half year after the time passed, and GoPro released a new product, the GoPro HERO 8 Black and the panoramic camera GoPro MAX.

For GoPro, this is actually two vital products, although from the perspective of a company’s hardware development, DJI Osmo’s release time node does not affect the product definition of GoPro’s generation, ie GoPro has almost no time to deal with sudden release of competing products to adjust new products, but from a consumer perspective, if HERO 8 can’t be stronger than Osmo Action, then at least in the eyes of Chinese consumers, GoPro The products are basically losing competitiveness.

But fortunately, after using HERO 8 Black for two months, I can say with great certainty that HERO 8 proves that GoPro can still make the best sports camera products on the market, and HERO 8 is the most comprehensive product. Sport camera.

Of course, like all the previous HERO products, HERO 8 still makes me love and hate from my personal experience. I have product advantages and disadvantages. I am just starting to officially sell HERO 8 Soon, if you are interested in the products of this category of sports cameras, I hope that my experience below will bring you some reference value.

The video at the beginning of the article was taken and produced before the release of GoPro Hero 8. After two months of heavy use, I have some more content to elaborate on in the text. Regarding the quality of the content, you can watch the video directly, and the display effect will be more intuitive and far better than the text description.

First of all, the design change of Hero 8 is very beneficial to the daily use of high-frequency users, and can be folded on the machine.The connection inside the body allows GoPro to completely get rid of the problem that the previous camera must be equipped with a rabbit cage. Just install a quick release latch on the folding accessory of the camera and convert all the accessories into a quick release connection. You can directly Quickly connecting your GoPro to any accessory greatly reduces the complexity of the device in the most basic experience, and after removing the rabbit cage design, the battery cover is designed to the side, which is also This means that changing the battery and changing the memory card no longer need to remove the machine from the accessories and then get it. If you usually use a sports camera, you will understand how useful this design is.

When DJI released Osmo Action, creatively placed a screen on the front of the fuselage, and received a lot of praise, GoPro did not follow, but found a curve to save the country, an external Vlog suite, benefits It is possible to switch between the hard-core motion camera and the daily Vlog camera, but the disadvantage is also very direct, that is, additional accessories are also charged, which will allow users to pay an additional purchase cost.

To be honest, this is really not a GoPro motion camera. It’s not like GoPro. The idea of ​​GoPro is different from that of DJI. GoPro hopes that the motion camera can still retain the most hardcore motion. The front screen display parameters are more friendly to many professional users. Just like Tim, a video blogger and film hurricane, said in his own Hero 8 evaluation, DJI wants to combine motion cameras with Vlog devices, while GoPro wants to keep motion cameras a hard core for their motion cameras, but There is still the ability to be compatible directly into a Vlog device.

In terms of actual experience, if you want to turn Osmo Action into a Vlog tool suitable for shooting, you can’t rely on a single machine. The quality of the radio is not good enough. You still need to have a rabbit cage with cold boots. The previous adapter, followed by a gun microphone similar to the small microphone of the RODE brand. GoPro is a gun-type microphone on the official media kit. You need to buy another small screen. Of course, this screen size is post-installation, so the size is definitely bigger and you can see more details. Nothing is more of a problem.

From the hard shooting parameters of the screen, Hero 8 has no special adjustments, but the sports camera is very important, except for the picture quality, and the image anti-shake ability. It is no exaggeration, Hero 8 is now So far, the best anti-shake motion camera, and definitely not one. Of course, on the system, Hero 8 also made more software adjustments for easy shooting. After all, sports cameras can now carry more and more shooting capabilities, so more buttons and settings that can be easily adjusted are needed to facilitate high-frequency users to operate quickly, and it is also suitable for small white users to get started quickly. Hero 8 does this. Still very advanced.

The anti-shake is very strong, and TimeWarp 2.0 for large-scale time-lapse shooting also adds a setting that can be preset to change the speed of the film directly at the time of shooting. However, I am still a bit worried about the way GoPro is named. Whether it is anti-shake or a wide range of delays, GoPro takes a very high-looking English name, which is not very friendly to China White, especially those I don’t know the white of GoPro.

It’s not a function that is not fragrant. It’s really hard to let people who have never used it know how sweet it is.

However, software updates and better design do not mean that this generation of GoPro is no problem, there is no perfect equipment, GoPro’s problem is still outstanding, for example, the screen behind it looks really small in 2019. The protective cover of the lens cannot be replaced by itself as before. The occasional crash problem that has always existed in this generation still exists.

However, if you want the best sports camera quality, the best motion camera anti-shake, and the easiest to use motion camera shooting feature, GoPro is still among the most worthwhile purchases. GoPro is the absolute market share leader in the field of sports cameras, and the control of this market is still there, and it can still find new lifting points in the updated product launch rhythm every year.

These are achieved through GoPro’s own research and development. It’s hard to deny that DJI’s new products don’t put pressure on GoPro, and GoPro is working harder in R&D.

As for my personal point of view, what do I hope the next generation, or future GoPro, will look like?

Big sensor, stronger processor performance, better shooting quality and night view quality, larger screen size, higher operating stability, better bare metal than current sound quality Radio. The fuselage can still be kept much less than it is now, and the weight does not change too much.

But the expectation is always the expectation. GoPro is updated every year. Hero 8 is enough for me to use it for a year or even longer. I hope that next year GoPro can do better under the competition of DJI.