GoPro Hero4 Silver

This is the first time I've ever had a high quality camera, so I will write from that perspective. I'm not going to compare it to prior models or break-down a comparison to other action cams. This review is just about the camera itself and how to possibly get the most of it.

First and foremost let me say that the quality of the video is absolutely stunning. I think GoPro cameras are mostly meant for video but even their snap shots can be quite amazing too. I have always liked photography but could never justify spending $600+ on a camera I probably wouldn't even use that often due to bulk and lenses. As a mountain biker, I've found myself craving to get some of the stuff I do on video. I've been wanting to get a GoPro for some time and have put it off until my birthday finally came around and my wife bought me the recently released Hero 4 Silver. I didn't order it on Amazon because I didn't want to wait 2 days to get it haha. We went to a local store and we almost bought the Hero3+ Silver edition but my wife convinced me to get the Hero4 instead and boy am I glad she did!

Let me say off the bat some of the problems I've experienced so far:

1. The battery life absolutely sucks. One battery is not enough to get you through almost any activity. I think it lasts even less time if its hot. You will need at minimum 3 batteries. I will be ordering a Wasabi dual battery charger with 2 extra batteries later today.

2. When uploading your vids and pics to the computer it will ask you if you want to clear the SD card. ALWAYS say no. I've lost pictures and videos that have failed to upload TWICE already. I have no way of knowing if it was due to the software not downloading it or if it just failed to record. So download everything, check to make sure it downloaded everything, and THEN delete afterwards.

3. A 16gb SD card will not be enough. You will need a minimum of 32gb and I would go ahead and just get the 64gb card to have some peace of mind. Also make sure you get a Class 10 SD card. GoPro has recommendations on their website. I have a SanDisk Extreme. It will improve the quality of your videos. Don't go cheap on the SD card, you will regret it.

4. One of the frustrating things about a brand new camera is that all the kinks are going to need to be worked out. GoPro releases some updates for this. So far some people have reported Wifi issues (though I have not had any). Its also difficult to figure out some things because they are new cameras and there is still not a lot of information out there yet. It took me an hour to figure out how to take time lapses. Basically you need to select burst mode and then hit the options button on the side of the camera. That little detail was nowhere to be found.

5. As a newbie camera owner I have come to realize that a lot of the GoPro success is due to amazing video editing. They include a software that makes the process easy enough to do some cool vids but you might end up hitting a wall at some point and yearn for some other editing (and more costly) software. I haven't hit that wall yet but I can see it happening. That being said you will not be able to get away with just buying the camera to get good shots. You will need a lot of accessories and there will be a learning curve to understanding what settings to use and where/how to mount and record. This will cost time and money but is actually a big part of the fun.

Some of the things I love about the Camera:

1. Timelapses are AWESOME and so easy to do. There is a lot of room for creativity with these.
2. Super easy to use once you learn the controls or download the app to remote control from your phone.
3. There is a video + photo mode. This is super cool because you can set the camera to take pics while its also recording video. You can end up with some really awesome photos like this.
4. I love how small and versatile this is. I plan to use this on all my vacations. Its not a burden at all. I also use it for my mountain biking.
5. My friend is a professional photographer and hates the distortion (fish eye effect) but I think its one of the things that makes this camera so versatile. You can capture so much!
6. The sound recording on this was a lot better than I expected.
7. There are tons of accessories to make this camera capable of doings A LOT.

Some advice:

1. Some GoPro (OEM/Official) mounts suck. So make sure you research and read reviews before you buy anything. Sometimes the aftermarket is better and sometimes it isn't.

2. Get a few mounts right away or you won't be able to enjoy the Hero4 the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

3. This bears repeating: Get some more batteries!!!

4. Watch GoPro videos and learn how people get good shots. Watch how they edit their vids to make them interesting. Then proceed to step 5.

5. GET CREATIVE. It is so much fun to try new shots and experiment with this camera. The shooting process and editing process should be FUN for you. Otherwise, you are spending money on a camera you will not use much. Save your money if you're not into that sort of thing.

6. Teach your significant other how to use it. It will make the story you show in your vids better when it comes from multiple perspectives.

You might be asking why is this review a 4 stars if I think its such a great camera. I would gladly give it 5 stars if it wasn't for some of the problems I mentioned above. I think if I didn't have missing/deleted vids and photos due to software/recording error I would have probably given it a 5 star despite some of the other minor issues. Overall, its a great freakin camera and I think for my intended purposes its almost perfect. If you want a convenient lightweight versatile camera for traveling and action/sports, this camera is a must buy. I will update this again after another month or two of use. Maybe by then the issue will be resolved and I will update to 5 stars. Hope this review helps!

UPDATE 12/10/2014:

Ok I've had some more time to use the camera and make some videos. Here is what I've learned:

It took me a day or two to learn to use the GoPro video editing software efficiently. The best way to learn to use the editing software is to search on Youtube for videos that show you. Its actually pretty easy and makes the process pretty painless. Depending on what computer you use, the software can be really slow when it comes to loading the videos and exporting them. Flux is a feature that smoothes the videos but takes even longer to export. It takes a long time on my computer and I have an intel core i7 (2.8ghz) with 8 gigs of ram. My graphics card is a somewhat low-end card. I'm not sure how much faster this would be on a Mac or a high-end computer, but you can probably still expect to leave the computer working while you walk away and do something else.
I think the average person will be very satisfied with the gopro software, because its very easy to use once you get the hang of it. Keep in mind that you should be excited about editing the videos. If watching film you've recorded and creating a story through some video editing is not something that appeals to you, don't buy any video camera because you will probably end up not using the footage and eventually not even the camera.

Another warning:
If you do enjoy all of the above, you will want ANOTHER camera. Once you realize you can get much cooler videos by getting different angles from multiple cameras, this hobby quickly becomes a bit of an obsession. Fortunately, you can buy the lower end model GoPros and just use the Hero 4 Silver for 4k videos or higher-quality shots. I will probably end up buying another GoPro camera in the near future.

Update 1/2/2014:

I had someone ask about the sound quality of the camera and whether an external microphone was needed. Here is my response:

It all depends on several things.

Do you plan on using the sound from your video? I'm assuming yes, but keep in mind many people usually play music over their vids.

What activity will you be doing? This matters because the sound quality improves depending on the type of back-cover you use. The completely water-proof one has the worst sound quality. The one that is completely open has the best sound quality. So if you're doing an activity where you expect some or a lot of water you may not be willing to use the open-back one. You may have to use the one that is soft for touchscreen but not submersible. This will affect the quality but it might still be "good enough".

How important is sound quality to you? An external mic is probably not necessary when you have the best possible set-up (see above). Then again, if you care a lot about sound quality or want semi-professional/professional quality, then a mic is almost certainly necessary. I know that the GoPro production team uses an external mic, so if you want to produce quality sound, you will probably have to get one.

Try out camera first with a few different set ups. Then decide if the sound quality meets your expectations. It exceeded mines when I played a volleyball game with some family. It was able to pick up my sisters voice clearly on the other side of the net, about 20 feet away. Thats good enough for me (at least for now) to not have to buy an external mic.

Update: 2/26/15
I figured out the problem with not being able to transfer all the pictures. I spoke with GoPro customer service and we were eventually able to narrow down the problem to my GoPro Cable. Since this is something that can probably happen to anyone (I had no way of knowing I had a bad cable), I recommend you always use an SD Card Adapter and upload your pictures that way. This fixed my issue. Changed my rating to 5 star due to customer service.

Background info: I only used my camera 10 times. It has never been dropped or abused in any way. The last time I used the camera successfully was May 2016. I have professional work experience as a CSR, marketer, and technical support supervisor for troubleshooting, RMAs, warranties, etc.

Went to charge and use my camera last month, only to discover that it would NOT charge at all. Not even the red light would illuminate. I followed the website instructions to try charging without a battery/SD card in various electrical outlets, all to no avail. I e-Mailed tech support explaining all of the troubleshooting I had done on my own prior to contacting them, and was given a canned response: Follow the troubleshooting instructions provided on our website. What a garbage support system.

Today, I decided I would finally call them and speak to a live representative. After I described the problem, the representative (who did not speak good English at all) was quick to tell me that not only was I out of warranty, that GoPro does not offer any kind of repair services for their cameras, AND that the camera was completely dead and useless --nothing I could do about it. I was told: "You can take it to a repair shop and pay someone to fix it, but I don't know who does those kinds of repairs." Why even say that if they don't know who can repair it? The saddest part about this experience is that I was perfectly willing to pay for any repairs needed (knowing that I'm out of warranty), yet the company doesn't even offer that service to the hundreds of thousands of customers that they have sold products to.

I was then told that it was well-known by their company that these cameras are "extremely fragile and break very easily", yet GoPro markets these cameras in use during high-impact sports with NO WARNING about the delicacy anywhere on their website, packaging material, or in their user manual. Believe me, I read the manual three times. Instead of issuing a recall for known defects, the company decided to sit on it and keep quiet, instead of doing the right thing and offering to repair or replace them.

After stating that a lack of repair is unacceptable, I was offered "40% off a GoPro Hero 5 Black" if I was willing to ship the Hero4 Silver back to them so that they can refurbish and re-sell it to someone else. The rep lied to me and insisted that their refurbs are only "people who bought the camera within 30 days and returned it." That's bull. They take the broken cameras back, repair them, and sell them right on their website. I asked her to explain to me how someone can return a camera within 30 days that was manufactured in the year 2014 and she went silent. (Fun fact: The cost of a Hero5 after coupon is almost the same price as a refurbished Hero4 Silver on their website. Coincidence? NOPE!)

It's nice to know that GoPro will refurbish and resell my camera to someone else, but not repair it for the original owner. Why should I purchase a Hero5 when my current Hero4 Silver is dead and will never be repaired by their company? So that I can have another broken camera that will never be repaired by the company that sold it to me? No thanks. I'm good.

Thanks for selling me a $400 paperweight. GoPro's dishonest policies are truly something else. I will NEVER buy another one of their products ever again, and I will continue to share my bad experience on every single product review site, social media platform, etc. to warn as many people as possible to stay away from this company.

It's the third GoPro we had.

There are so many flaws to the firmware that it's just unbelievable. We keep falling for the brand, but no more.

This time, we ran behind the warranty period when the camera simply died. Customer service offered 20% discount on the next purchase, but even that - with many requirements. We're not going to fall to this again.

The camera's firmware and software are with poor quality and are definitely not worth the money.