181
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #188,867 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★☆
Love it hate it
UPDATE: 10/29/2014
So I bought the new SD Card and managed to play around with more of the settings.
The new faster memory card fixed all my SD Card errors so the only thing left keeping it from the "perfect" camera is the heating issue.
I am constantly running heat trials on this unit, mainly with the housing on and recently started opening the back housing.
Basically trying to see which recording format will allow me to record the longest duration.
The trend is anything 4K, 2.7K or above 90FPS will probably overheat in 30 mins to 1 hour. This is when the standard house, I'm sure you open the back door you can get a few more minutes, but 1 hour if you're lucky.
I manage to get the 2.7K 30FPS running 24/7 but i had to remove it entirely outside the case as I slept in my dark room.
720p30fps also manage to do 24/7 inside the case so that's good news.
So in summary any format just below 90FPS or 2.7K is probably good for about 2-3 hours. Any format at the bottom has a reasonable chance of running 24/7 or pretty long as long if you don't lay it in the sun.
Also kind of misleading is the auto low light feature is only possible in above 30FPS.
So let's be real now, the battery is only good for 1-2 hours anyways so the average Joe using the battery will find recording 1hour on 4K pretty good. Your 64gb memory card maxes out at 2hours at 4K anyways, so honestly when you compare the other limiting factors the overheating isn't as bad now
....of course you could buy spare batteries, supposedly larger yet unofficially compatible 128GB cards and now the overheating is the only problem left without a real solution...I "like" gopros official solution...just use less features, adds 10 mins, and record smaller files aka dont use it as often lol.
I get the sense online that the overheating is to be "expected" but seriously i never hear good things in the long run about stuff constantly overheating.
I have a frame mount in the mail, so optimistic
I hope someday someone makes a battery eliminator adapter like they do for the hero 3
FINAL VERDICT.
All the features 4K, 2.7k and 80+ FPS features are cool and impressive, but don't fall in love with them because they only last 30 mins - 1 hour. It's a like a drug, once you record in 4K you don't want to go back to 1080p. I love it but i hate it too, I believe that someday they'll dial in the firmware right because I really want to like this camera. So I didn't return it.
INITIAL REVIEW:
Bought it at a local store, sorry Amazon I'm an impulse buyer and can't wait 2 days for these kind of toys.
I have a Hero 2 which I loved and expect a similar if not better experience.
This is just my initial reviews and I intend to write a full review once I iron out some bugs out.
Pros
Out of the box it is a nice sleek piece of hardware and the buttons are very friendly and responsive.
I use my Samsung S4 mini to connect via the WIFI app and overall it is a solid connection with no disconnects.
The live feed has as 1-2 second delay and I occasionally lose the feed connection, i believe it because my phone's screen times out and it interferes with the live feed connection.
Haven't tried the bluetooth yet, the option did not stand out to me as I was playing around with the App and menu screens.
Video quality is great, the 4K looks great. I'm not a video expert so I will assume the quality is legit.
Works with older generation Hero 2 LCD and extended BacPac
Cons
My biggest issues are the memory card compatibility and heating issues.
When connected to the LCD pac, it gets extremely warm....almost too hot over time. I believe this is a known bug so I stopped connecting it to the LCD.
I also notice it gets extremely warm when recording on the 4K. Which I hope is improved upon because I was planning to have this running in my car for hours in a dash cam setup. My Hero 2 never once felt warm or remotely hot.
Apparently the Hero 4 is very picky on a which SD card to use.
I used a Transcend 64GB MicroSDXC Class10 UHS-1 Memory Card with Adapter 45 MB/s that supposedly worked very well for the Hero 3+ Black.
So when I do "standard" recording with the 4K or WVGA....at the some point the Hero 4 will randomly turn off or SD error.
GoPro recently released an update that fixed this so now I can do standard recording in 4K and WVGA.
However,
When I try to do "loop" recording I always get an SD card error. No matter what format I choose, I still get an SD card error.
So normally I would be pretty frustrated, but I'm optimistic and too lazy to go back and return it for fear I received a lemon.
Instead I bought an Extreme 64 Sandisk U3, and waiting on that in the mail hoping this will fix my SD card issues.
I will gladly update my rating if the SD card works, but I would highly recommend people wait for the bugs to be ironed out before you purchase this.
October 2014 · Electronics