Nicely Made, Extremely Small & Portable, Great Video Quality, Good Battery Life, Easy to Use
I really love this new smaller edition of the GoPro cameras! First off, the camera feels very well made and doesn’t feel cheap. It has a little weight to it for it’s size, but is still very easy to hold and mount as needed. I was actually very surprised by the overall size of this camera. It definitely looks bigger in photos. This camera comes with a few accessories which are all GoPro branded and feel strong and sturdy. There is no case included with this camera, which isn’t a deal breaker by any means, but something to keep it protected when not in use would have been nice.The camera itself is very easy to use and operate. The built in, bright touch screen really helps with this and is also very responsive and fairly easy to see in direct sunlight. You can also use the app to change settings as needed, too (there aren’t many). The app itself is well designed and also easy to navigate.There are 3 modes to this camera. That’s it. Because of this, it’s great for beginners or for someone who needs quick, easy to use 4K without having to adjust settings, etc. before shooting.The 4K/30 FPS video quality is excellent and honestly, the best I have seen on an action camera at this price point, so far. While filming in 4K/30 the camera does get a little warm, but it hasn’t shut itself off yet, at least for me. The quality of the images is excellent and very clear and crisp. Even low light images aren’t terrible on this camera. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not anything like the day time images, however, for an action camera, it’s really not awful. The built in microphones record good audio for an action camera and is extremely usable for most projects.The electronic image stabilization is excellent and in my opinion, is better then some gimbals. Keep in mind, there is no built in stabilization within the camera. It gets applied when viewed and exported from the app. So each video will need to be “processed” before exporting. To my surprise, this doesn’t take long and it works really well. It’s just another step before the video can used for whatever you might be working on.The battery life on this is pretty good and it really depends on your settings that will determine how long it will last. Filming in the highest setting (4K/30), the more battery this is going to use. They include the newer enduro battery inside which works better in extreme temperatures and provides more shooting time. The battery is built in and cannot be swapped for another battery. It will need to be charged through the camera itself. It doesn’t take too long to charge and can be charged with a power bank while on the go. It can also be used while charging which helps.All things considered, I really like this camera and it is priced quite well for the overall quality it provides. It’s one of those cameras you can just grab and go with. It’s quick and super simple to get high quality 4K video in a pretty lightweight and very small package.

Good beginner camera.
Simple to use, and provides pretty nice videos. The only issue that I had was not with the camera, but understanding the app. Once I got the uploading process down-pat I was good to go.

Worst GoPro yet
This is my third GoPro and I’m extremely unhappy with it after one or two uses so far. Apart from overall size, which is why I bought it, there hasn’t been any reason to use this over my Hero 9. Bad battery life and it constantly loses connection to the app, and video preview from the app with often show up as a blank screen. On top of that, I’m unable to download any videos I’ve recorded to my phone. I’ve never had any kind of issues like this with a GoPro before. I very enthusiastically do not recommend this product.

Updates took a while
the first update took a few trys. and it only works with a phone. the quality is very good and it is easy to use

Pros:- Premium build quality- Compact and portable design- Simple interface with only three shooting modes- Quik app works well for stabilizing the footage- App supports H.264 and H.265 mp4 encoding- Good daylight video/image quality- Respectable underwater performanceCons:- No optical or digital stabilization in the camera- Non-removable battery- Lack of manual exposure or white balance control- No exposure compensation- Lengthy post-processing workflow- The mode button feels stiffThe GoPro Hero 4K has a premium build and is smaller than expected around the size of half a credit card. It feels solid and has some weight to it. I like it. Before use, the camera needs to be updated to the latest firmware. Make sure you connect the camera to a stable USB power supply before doing this. My Hero 4K came with only 30% battery charge, and updating firmware at this charge level without a stable external power source can harm your camera. The updates went smoothly with the Quik app. The app allowed me to do everything I needed to do as a guest without registration or subscription. This is great. The camera does not have a removable battery, probably to save real estate, and this is another consideration before buying this camera.The camera needs at least a V30 SD card to record and will give you an error message if your SD card is not fast enough. The camera has a very simple interface and only offers three modes of operation: 4K 30fps, 2.7K 60fps (slow motion), and 12MP still photos. Exposure is automatic. There is no manual exposure mode. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, or colour temperature cannot be adjusted. 1080p shooting is possible by selecting the “power save” mode.The camera lens has a very wide shooting angle, almost 180 degrees. However, it is unfortunate that the lens does not have optical stabilization. I think this is a big miss and I don’t like it. Furthermore, the simple camera design also does not feature any digital stabilization. Missing any image stabilization does appear quite disappointing for an action camera. I think they intentionally did it this way to save device power and therefore prolong recording time with the small built-in battery. Fortunately, GoPro made it up by providing the Quik app to stabilize the footage during post-processing. The stabilization is actually quite good and smooth with the app and I am impressed. However, it takes more time and steps to download the footage to the phone and then perform stabilization. It was surprising that the downloading and stabilization process was quite fast. However, the exporting of the final stabilized footage took a long time, which was not surprising for my 5-year-old phone. It took over 15 minutes to export a 90-second 4K clip. One can transfer the stabilized mp4 file to Windows to perform further editing. The exported mp4 is stored under movies/GoPro-export on the phone.This is a lengthy post-processing workflow and I was not impressed. There must be an easier way to do everything on Windows without going back and forth on the phone. I finally found a free Windows software that can perform image stabilization based on gyro data. This means that I can do everything on Windows without needing to use the Quik phone app. I just needed to download the original mp4 footage from the camera directly to my Windows computer via a USB cable. Recorded videos are stored in the Hero/DCIM/100GOPRO folder. Then I can perform the digital stabilization and video editing all on Windows. After setting up this new workflow, I am a happy camper and no longer need to be tied to the phone app. This should speed up the post-processing significantly.The camera’s video quality in daylight is good and sharp, but it is not a low-light camera and therefore image quality may be compromised when shooting indoors. The camera runs warm but not hot, thanks to the full-front heat sink.In conclusion, this is a really compact and solid outdoor camera with respectable underwater performance. However, the lack of built-in image stabilization makes the post-processing workflow longer. If you are willing to trade post-processing time and complexity for compactness and battery life, this is the camera for you. I have to say I really like how compact and portable the camera is and may just accept the longer post-processing time as I don’t shoot long clips, so it should be fine with me.

Having been a user of GoPro products for years, this iteration of the Hero is downright frustrating!Let me run the pros and cons from my experience.Pros:+ Compact size and low weight. I love the small form factor and low-weight of this camera. I also have a Hero 10 Black, and the size difference is significant!+ Touchscreen is nice and works well.+ Easy to switch modes and record both video and photos.+ This model includes voice command support (through the camera, not a phone app).+ Built-in waterproofing and a replaceable lens cover are excellent features.+ Still compatible with most* GoPro mounts.Cons:- Built-in battery limits run times, and gives this camera a limited lifespan for no good benefit.- While you can use this while plugged into a USB-C cable, the side door would remain open, and is not ideal. Coupled with the poor battery implementation, this severely limits use options.- Gets hot, even when you aren’t doing anything! The overheating issues continue to plague GoPro, and even this unit gets quite hot when it’s on and not recording anything! My other GoPro needed to be exchanged because of overheating, and the replacement does the same thing… it’s a feature, not a bug, apparently.- Since there is no built-in image stabilization (a HUGE deal-breaker), you MUST use the GoPro app to stabilize the video. This adds a considerable amount of time to any workflow, and locks you into using the terrible GoPro app. The problem with this reliance is that if GoPro decides to end support for the app, or make this feature a pay-only option, then you’re stuck with a camera that takes terribly shaky video! Because of this limitation, you also can’t copy videos straight from the camera to use as-is, since they would not be stabilized.- There is pretty much no adjustability in the mode settings. If you want anything but 4k, you have to toggle the battery save mode to get 1080p.- GoPro really wants you to subscribe to unlock more features. In fact, you’ll be hounded CONSTANTLY if you don’t. I’ve started getting notifications, emails, and popups in the app, and it won’t stop unless I pay for it. By the same token, even editing your videos in the app is extremely limited, and you will run into “subscribe to get this feature” pop ups any time you want to do anything beyond the most basic editing.- *This camera is NOT compatible with the magnetic mount that other GoPro cameras can use. For a device meant to be convenient and portable, this is bizarre to see!- The mount that is included with this model is built-in and lacks a 1/4″ tripod mount (something I could easy get with my Hero 10 Black through a third-party mount upgrade).- The video quality is just OK. Nowhere near as clean and crisp as even my two-year old Hero 10 Black.- At the current price ($279.99), this is about $179 too expensive, in my opinion. You can get other cameras that are not GoPro for under $100, with better quality and built-in image stabilization. And you wouldn’t require a subscription to get those features.Conclusion.There’s something wrong with the direction that GoPro has been taking with their cameras. Once a leader in the action camera space, the push for a subscription while intentionally limiting hardware features seems like a major step backward.While I will certainly continue using this camera for its small size and low weight, I couldn’t possibly recommend that someone pay nearly $300 for it.

I picked this up to use on my motorcycle helmet and I’m very happy with it so far. I like that it’s smaller and lighter than the Hero13 (or 12) and I’m not paying for a whole bunch of features I won’t use. The battery life is sufficient for my needs and the picture quality is excellent.Having to use the app to apply image stabilization is an extra step that may annoy some, but this is a trade off for the size and price of this camera. If it’s a dealbreaker for you, go with the Hero13. Personally, I use this as basically a motorcycle dash cam, so I’m only pulling video where something out of the ordinary happened on my ride.