Honest review. The updated GoPro 6: What’s inside?

GoPro has long been entrenched in the action camera market and can rightfully be considered one of the main flagships for producing the most advanced gadgets for extreme filming. In addition, the popular #GoPro4Life trend is developing and flourishing, debunking the myth that if you don’t stand on a board, shoot video professionally or do basejumping, this camera is not for you.

The perfect solution for those new to editing and filming is the popular QuickStories app. It allows you to easily transfer your video to your phone. Your footage is then automatically uploaded to the GoPro app and converted into a video for social media.

You can watch the video on GoPro’s official YouTube channel.

Recently, the whole world has seen an updated version of the legendary camera – GoPro 6. Let’s try to understand whether it’s worth buying a new model or the difference with the previous five or four is still difficult to call colossal.

You can watch the video on GoPro’s official YouTube channel.

In the language of numbers

To begin with, let’s talk about the price of the question. In general, a good action camera of the GoPro line will cost you from 12,000 to 35,000 rubles. The novelty is recommended for sale in Russia at a price of 38,990 rubles. This is a normal price, given the stuffing that manufacturers offer. Moreover, now one of the global trends among popular bloggers and ordinary people is the rejection of professional heavy cameras in favor of miniature and mobile. After all, if you try not to miss anything from your daily life, you should always have a camera with you.

But before you go to the store for a new gadget, it is worth to understand the advantages of GoPro 6 and learn what new promises developers.

The new camera: 5 main differences

At first glance, the new camera is no different from the previous model: the appearance is the same, the dimensions are the same, the control buttons are the same, the weight is almost the same (less by only 1 gram), but the insides of the new product have undergone serious changes. Here are just a few of them:

1. Stabilization has improved. And although it is still not optical, and digital, HERO6 shoots noticeably smoother than its predecessor.

2. The new GP1 processor is GoPro’s own unique development in this area. It improves image quality, color reproduction, dynamic auto exposure adjustment, which is especially important when shooting in low and frequently changing light. This is a really big step forward. Personally, as a person who doesn’t know much about ISO settings, I was always worried that in low light the photo turns out to be very faint and it will have to be corrected in some program anyway. In the new updated version of the camera you can enable auto adjustment, even a beginner can easily figure it out.

You can watch the video on the official GoPro YouTube channel.

3. There is a command to turn on the camera. Say “GoPro Wake Up” and it wakes up and goes into standby mode for 8 hours.

4. Improved computer vision and machine learning capabilities, allowing HERO6 to better understand the dynamics of movement and and pre-position highlights based on what’s happening in the frame.

5. There is a new 4K shooting mode with a 4:3 aspect ratio. In this mode, you can shoot in Wide at 30/25/24 fps. When processing video shot in this format, you have more options for cropping without losing image quality. Now you can not only shoot a great video, but you can also slice up a whole album for social media.

To make our review as competent as possible, we decided not to rely on dry facts and contacted blogger and surfer Dmitry Evseev, who lives in Mauritius, runs his own YouTube channel and has already gotten to grips with the new camera options. Especially for our review, Dmitry gave some valuable comments on the new GoPro 6 options.

Ergonomics of the new product

Dmitry Yeseev: “Externally, the novelty does not differ from HERO5, the whole cymus is in the stuffing. There is no question about the battery for me personally, I surf and kitesurf, where the session usually lasts about two hours, and I don’t remember any cases when I ever ran out of battery: neither on the four, nor on the five, so I think there will be no problems on the six”.

Dealing with updates in the settings

Dmitry Evseev: “If you switch to the six after the five, you’ll understand everything in a minute – there are few changes in settings and applications. But with the four, the differences are more significant. I remember, at first, when I just switched from the four to the five, I was very stressed that instead of the familiar (and, by the way, very difficult for a beginner) menu and three buttons now only two. But now that I’m used to it, I can’t imagine how it could be made even more convenient. Everything is intuitive, and thanks to the screen you can immediately see the result of changing the settings. This was very much lacking on the four, where you could see the result only after you shot the frames and uploaded them to your computer or phone. Now everything is simple: you have all the settings on the screen, and you can change any of them with two taps. What more could you want? Perhaps now if we could just add a voice function to change the settings – that would be the bomb!”

The video can be seen on the official Pryde Club Mauritius channel.

Choosing accessories for the new camera

Dmitry Evseev: “If they put me against the wall and told me that from now on you can use only one mount for GoPro, then, without a second’s hesitation, I would leave all sorts of accessories Grillmount from Pro Standart out of my backpack. It’s a mount molded to fit your teeth. For taking selfies and followcam surfing/kitesurfing/SUP and any other water activity, it’s a must-have because it doesn’t add weight in any way. I’ve been in some of the scariest wipeouts on Wanai and I’ll tell you, the safest place to keep your camera with you is in your teeth. No teeth get hurt in the process. And if I were allowed to choose one more mount, I’d go with the GoPro Dome from Knekt for filming surfing from the water. It’s beyond competitive. You can catch surfers right inside the tube, holding the camera like a gun and using your other hand to keep your body upright.”

Bottom line: who should buy the GoPro 6?

I would advise to buy a new camera to those who want to be in the trend and ready to use all the updates of the novelty. Agree, because it’s silly to admire the improved processor and shooting quality when your camera is lying on the shelf and waiting for the cherished hour. I’d like to note that GoPro itself is not only your reliable companion on the spot or in the mountains, or in the cockpit of an airplane before a parachute jump, it’s also a great camera for life, to catch every moment of a new day, to make bright pictures from a bike ride or put on a waterproof case and go to the pool. But even if mentally you are not ready to buy the latest novelty, do not hurry to go to the famous AliExpress in search of an “alternative” for 2000 rubles, pay your attention to other lines and choose something that meets your needs and expectations.

As the owner of GoPro Hero 3+, I will tell you honestly that in all five years of use I have never once and in no country in the world had the problem of finding a charging cord, a replacement battery (when I flooded mine) or a new waterproof case. When you buy a good thing from a global brand, you are buying durability, reliability and quality. I think your travels deserve it!