GoPro Hero4 Black review: Smooth 4K video that’s still the best in the category
GoPro has taken a tiny box roughly the size of a Zippo lighter and turned it into something truly remarkable.
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The Good
The GoPro Hero4 Black delivers best-in-class video at resolutions up to 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 120fps. Wide assortment of mounting options from GoPro and third-party manufacturers.
The Bad
Battery life can feel painfully short and due to a redesign you can’t use older batteries with the Hero4. No option for in-camera digital image stabilization and it still needs a housing to be waterproof.
The Bottom Line
The GoPro Hero4 Silver is still our top choice for most people, but if you need the best video quality with the most shooting options, the Hero4 Black is it.
The Hero4 Black is the company’s 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, £370 in the UK and AU$649 for the folks in Australia.
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 capture 1080p at 120fps, which can make for some very smooth video when shooting fast-moving scenes, as well as cool slow-motion clips. (Neither option does battery life any favors, though.) Add in its high 60Mbps recording bitrate and you’ve got one powerful tiny camera.
The thing is, there isn’t a huge gap in performance or features between the Black and the excellent Hero4 Silver , which is $100 less and has a built-in touchscreen (part of the reason it received our Editors’ Choice Award). The Black certainly has advantages, but unless you must have the best of the best from GoPro, you’re probably better off with the Silver or a camera from Sony, iOn, Contour, Drift or others.
Design and features
Owners of the Hero3/3+ Black will notice some subtle but important changes with the Hero4, the biggest being the new battery compartment design. It no longer slides in the back, but drops into the bottom, which works just fine and makes swapping them out easier. However, this required a battery redesign as well, which means you can’t use batteries from previous models.
The conspiracy theorist in me says GoPro did this to force you to buy new batteries at $20, £16 or AU$34 a pop and a new external charger (though Blue Nook has its non-OEM Wasabi packs ready to buy).
Another key change — this time for the better — is to the camera’s buttons. The layout remains the same, but what was the Wi-Fi power button on the right side is now a “Hilight Tag.” Going through hours of video looking for that one cool moment can be tedious.
While recording with the Hero4, you hit the button immediately after that cool moment happens and it’s tagged so you can find it fast later when viewing in GoPro’s free mobile app or desktop Studio software. It’s not the first action cam to have a feature like this , but it’s a useful addition.
When not recording, this same button accesses your settings menus. The menus on past models were a mess, but GoPro made things a bit easier by making everything sensitive to which mode you’re in. That means if you’re in video-capture mode and press the settings button, you’ll only get the settings options for video.
Given that there are so many resolution, frame rate and other shooting options, this cuts down significantly on the menu hunting. Plus, now that you have to go into a separate settings mode to turn on Wi-Fi, it won’t accidentally kick on in your bag and kill your battery.
On the left side is a removable easy-to-lose cover protecting Micro-HDMI and Mini-USB ports and the microSD slot supporting cards up to 64GB. The Mini-USB port is used for charging and transferring content off your microSD card, but can also be used with an optional 3.5mm stereo mic cable so you can attach a studio-quality external mic.
Though it doesn’t have a built-in touchscreen, a Hero port is on back, which lets you attach GoPro’s LCD Touch BacPac or the Battery BacPac.
The front activity lights have moved from next to the lens to along side the tiny monochrome display (that really needs to be backlit, but isn’t), but otherwise the camera is the same size as the Hero3/3+ so you can use housings and mounts for those with the Hero4.
For your money, you’ll get the camera, a waterproof housing that’s good down to 131 feet (40 meters), a skeleton door for better audio when full water protection isn’t needed, two adhesive mounts (one flat and one curved), horizontal and vertical quick-release buckles that attach to the bottom of the camera’s housing and a three-way pivot arm, so you can mount the camera on the top, front or side of a helmet.
A small locking plug (also included) can be used to help prevent the buckles from accidentally releasing from the mount from force or vibration. There is no charger in the box for the camera, just a Mini-USB cable for charging via computer or USB wall adapter if you have one. There is also no microSD card included for storage, so plan on getting at least one of those.
Compared to the Hero3+ Black, it’s the same package with one exception: the GoPro Wi-Fi Smart Remote isn’t included. The remote was redesigned to take advantage for the new HiLight/Settings button, too, so while an old one will work, you’ll have to spend $80, £60 or AU$119 for the updated version.
If you don’t want to lay out money for the remote, you can change settings, preview and review and transfer content using GoPro’s mobile app. Just connect the Black via Wi-Fi directly to your smartphone and you’re set. Bluetooth has been added to the Hero4 to make reconnecting faster and easier. The app can also be used to update the firmware on the camera, which is much easier than the old procedure of loading up a microSD card.
Wi-Fi, of course, doesn’t help battery life any, so if you’re not using it, you’ll want to shut it off. Battery life in general isn’t great, but that’s the price you pay for getting a camera this small and powerful. In my tests of continuous recording at 4K at 30fps in Protune mode with Wi-Fi off, I averaged about 50 minutes; with Wi-Fi on it recorded for around 40 minutes.
That’s less than GoPro’s estimate of 1 hour and 5 minutes and 55 minutes for the same conditions, so expect somewhere in between those. Also, the lower the resolution and slower the frame rate, the longer you’ll be able to record.
The possible resolution and frame-rate combinations seem nearly endless and I’m just talking about straight-up video. Add in stills and time-lapse options and you’ll quickly find there’s no shortage of things to experiment with. I could list them all out here, but you’re better off popping over to GoPro’s specs page for the full details.
Again, the big edge the Hero4 Black has over the Silver is its recording resolutions, faster frame rates and higher bitrate. If you need the best video, the Black is the one to get.
GoPro talked up the availability of manual controls for photos and video, but the adjustments are still pretty limited. Switching on the camera’s Protune option enables recording at its highest bit rate of 60Mbps.
Protune also lets you set color to either GoPro’s color profile or Flat, which is a neutral color profile that makes post-production easier; select a white balance for your lighting conditions; pick an ISO sensitivity limit of ISO 400, 1600 and 6400 for video and ISO 100, 200, 400 and 800 for photos; adjust sharpness and exposure compensation (+/-2EV); and control of shutter speed for the new Night Photo and Night Lapse modes.
That’s all more control than you get with most action cams, but if you’re expecting full manual controls, that’s not available. For example, shutter speeds can be set to 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 seconds, but you can’t set it for 1/25th or 1/10th of a second, you can’t select a specific ISO sensitivity and you can’t measure white balance manually.
Video and photo quality
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.
Keep in mind, the sensor in this camera is the same size as an average point-and-shoot camera. The value here, as with all action cams, is that the camera is small and light enough to mount anywhere. A dSLR will deliver better video quality, but you’re not strapping it to your helmet. Well, not comfortably at least.
The Black’s biggest shortcoming is the lack of electronic image stabilization. However, you can record in 4K and crop in to help tame shaky video. In fact, unless you have a 4K display, the capability to crop in and still be a full-HD resolution is the big benefit to having 4K available.
Photo quality is good, but as soon as you start to enlarge it, details look painterly and artifacts are readily visible. Again, the sensor is no bigger than your average point-and-shoot camera, so don’t expect dSLR quality.
The camera’s Auto Low Light for photos and video essentially just slows down the shutter speeds so more light can reach the sensor to get a proper exposure. That’s fine if the camera and your subject are still, but movement from either will result in blur. The camera selected 0.3 second for the shutter speed for the above photo, which resulted in a good exposure and has a nice, soft flow to it, but the lights on the building are blurred from shake.
Conclusion
If you want the GoPro with the best video quality, the Hero4 Black is definitely the way to go. You can pick on the blocky design, the battery life and the features, but the video is still the best in the category.
