AKASO Brave 8 is an Expensive Action Camera With Unforgivably Buggy Software

The Brave 8 is plagued by unreliable software and a very high price tag, with this review cut short because the camera became completely unresponsive

The Akaso Brave 8 is a waterproof action camera with impressive specs that are on par, or even better than some of the competition from DJI and GoPro. Unlimited recording time, 4K 60fps, and being waterproof up to 10m without a case are some of the Brave 8's biggest selling features. Under ideal lighting, you can capture decent photos and videos.

Action cameras have never exactly been known to wow you in terms of image quality, however, they still have their place when it comes to needing a compact, bring it everywhere camera that you don't mind getting banged up. The Brave 8 takes a lot of cues from the original DJI Action camera, especially with its design and the front-facing display, however, at $279 (just $20 less than the DJI), is it a worthy contender? Spoiler alert... probably not.

Great specs and features will only get this camera so far. Although the Brave 8 offers an easy-to-use interface with several video and picture modes and manual controls, the user experience has been bumpy, to say the least. In my few weeks with the Brave 8, I tested its various video and photo modes and used them while riding my bike, running, and vlogging. When it works, it gets the job done. Unfortunately, though, a few days into testing the camera, it became very apparent this was not going to be a smooth review experience. Before I could complete all my tests, the camera has completely stopped working. Before I dig deeper into these issues, let's start by looking at its features and what's included.

What's Included

The unboxing experience is very similar to GoPro. The packaging looks nearly identical at first and overall it felt premium. I appreciate that Akaso has included many of the most important attachments to get you up and running with the camera without needing to buy too many accessories.

You'll find the following:

I was able to get the Akaso attached to my bike helmet easily without needing to buy anything else.

This is probably one of the more common uses for an action camera, so that's great. The handlebar mount is another useful one too for mounting to your bike frame directly.

The remote is helpful if you're planning on using the camera from a distance, say placing it on a rock or ledge and walking away from it, or if you want to use this attached to a selfie stick.

Notably missing, however, is a chest mount, head strap, or any tripod/gorilla pod.

Granted these accessories would require much larger packaging and can easily be bought separately in combo sets on the cheap. At a minimum, I would recommend getting some kind of tripod or arm attachment if you want to get creative with your shots.

Key Features & Specs

As mentioned at the start, the AKASO Brave 8 has some pretty impressive specs and lots of modes to choose from. While there are a number of manual settings you can tweak, I found keeping the camera in Auto gave the best results.

Sensor/Lens

The 1/2” CMOS sensor can take 48MP or 12MP stills. The Lens is equivalent to 16mm f/2.5. There is a removable lens cover that protects the lens itself from damage. This cover can be replaced.

You can choose between Super Wide Angle / Wide Angle / Portrait Perspective / Narrow-Angle.

You can see a big difference between the four modes. Every angle after Super Wide is using a digital crop, so there will inevitably be a loss of quality.

Wide Angle actually looked good, and from my testing didn't have noticeable issues. I liked this angle as it reduces that fish-eye look that the Super Wide-angle gives.

I would not recommend using Portrait or Narrow because of the large quality loss.

The narrow field of view is extremely pixilated and I don't see any practical use for it.

Screens

The Brave 8 sports Dual-color screens: a 1.22" front screen which is just for monitoring, and the 2" touch screen on the rear.

Holding down the M (Mode) button switches between the two screens. The front screen helps you set framing and is a great addition. Unfortunately, you are limited to the back screen only for changing your settings.

Battery, Charging, and Run-Time

The two 1550mAh batteries have a claimed runtime in 4K for up to 90 minutes. I'll touch upon this in further detail, but I was not able to get the camera to record for this long. The Brave 8 supports unlimited video recording, meaning you don't have to hit record every 30 minutes, a limitation many cameras still have. Whether or not the camera's battery will last that long or it won't overheat, is another thing, though.

You can charge the two batteries at the same time using the charging dock which connects via a USB-C cable.

The camera can also be charged directly via USB-C as well as completely run off USB-C without the battery inserted at all.

Formats & Bitrate

• Video: H.264 / H.265 - Bitrate: High, Medium, Low
• Photo: JPEG / JPEG + RAW
• NTSC: 4K30 4:3, 4K60 16:9, 2.7K90 4:3, 2.7K120 16:9, 1440P180, 1080P200
• PAL: 4K25 4:3, 4K50 16:9, 2.7K75 4:3, 2.7K100 16:9, 1440P150, 1080P200
• ISO: (Photo) 100 - 3200, (Video) 100 - 6400

I mostly shot in 4K 60fps as this provided the sharpest video and could be slowed to 50% if I wanted. When I wanted even more slow-motion, I would use 2.7K 120fps. With competing action cameras now offering 4K 120fps and 2.7K 240fps, the Brave 8 does fall a little short here.

24fps is missing from all modes, however. When I contacted the AKASO team, I was told this is something they might be adding in a future software update. 480fps in 720p is rather unique and can give you some cool slo-mo shots, but the video is far from sharp.

Waterproof

The Brave 8 is waterproof up 10m/33ft without a case or up to 196ft (60m) with the optional waterproof case (not included). I actually really wanted to test its video quality underwater but lost the chance to when the camera completely stopped working for me.

Audio Recording

You can record audio in two modes; Stereo or Human Voice. Stereo Audio is the normal recording mode without any filtering. Human Voice Mode applies some noise reduction to help focus on your voice and eliminate background noise. It does a good job at cutting out unwanted sound, but it does make your voice sound quite flat and not too pleasing. I would only recommend using this mode if it is absolutely necessary; for example, while recording with heavy wind.

Meter Mode

The AKASO Brave 8 offers several meter models; AI Face Metering, Center Average Metering, Metering, Center Metering, Spot Metering.

Photo & Video Quality

When the camera worked, there were some good things going for it. With decent lighting outdoors, the image and video quality were good. It wasn't great by any means, but most important to me, it handled changes in lighting and white balance well.

The dynamic range is solid and while the colors aren't punchy and the image overall felt underexposed a bit, a little editing did help.

Compared to iPhone 13

In this side-by-side comparison to my iPhone 13 (on the right), you can see how much darker and cooler the image of the Brave 8 is. This was shot on a slightly overcast afternoon. The sun was just starting to set but there was still plenty of light outside.

This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but it shows a rather dramatic difference in image quality. When you pixel peep you can also notice that the AKASO also struggles with fringing and lacks lots of details in the shadows.

The camera seems to mostly be exposing for the sky, trying to give you the most contrast and reduce blowing it out. The sky usually looks good on the AKASO, but in turn, the rest of the image, especially the shadows can appear underexposed.

Looking at this next sample from the same time and location as the iPhone comparison, you can see how much more detail we are able to get in the shadows when we switch to manual settings, however this comes at the expense of a blown-out sky.

The AKASO Brave 8 is Very Buggy

Overall, I found the Brave 8's software and companion app to be unreliable to the point that it frequently would prevent the camera from being usable at all. The problems began with a tedious initial setup process which involved connecting the camera to the app (which took about five minutes just to connect) followed by updating the software which caused the app to crash twice before it was finally successful. After completing the setup, things started to get worse as the camera itself consistently encountered a few major issues, and there's a good chance that many of these are related to each other.

Crashing/Unresponsiveness

As mentioned earlier, the most common issue I kept running into was the camera becoming unresponsive. The screen would go black but stay lit and the camera would still beep when I clicked any button. I can't tell if the camera is frozen or if the screens themselves just stop working. I think it's the former, as hitting the record button doesn't start or stop a recording, making me think the camera itself is frozen. Further supporting this, when the camera has this problem, even taking out the battery doing a hard restart shows the AKASO boot logo, but immediately after the screen goes black again.

On occasion, this lock-up did occur while recording a video clip, but interestingly, I most frequently was able to replicate the issue when switching between the Photo/Video mode. Even more curious is that the issue was usually remedied after a few tries of taking the battery out and reinserting it, but for some reason, the camera now refuses to operate at all. I've tried lots of troubleshooting since, but alas, the camera was done with the review, and at that point, I too was done trying to get it to work.

Stabilization

I wasn't very impressed with the Brave 8's stabilization. You can set the stabilization to Standard or Super-Smooth. Standard was "OK" but not nearly as smooth as DJI or Go Pro.

Super Smooth gets the Brave 8 closer, however requires each video clip to be processed and exported through the app. Aside from the fact that the app is also unreliable and that either it or the camera, or both, would crash, I don't like relying on this extra step in order to get super stable footage. Perhaps a stronger processor would allow the camera to do this internally.

Battery Life

Battery life was all over the place. It's hard to tell how long the battery actually lasted because the percentage would jump around. Sometimes it would go from 70% to 50% and back to 70% in a matter of a few minutes. Even with my last few tests, the camera went from a full charge to about 40% after about 30 minutes of the camera being on, but only 10 minutes of actual footage being recorded. I also noticed that anytime the camera dropped below 20%, it would usually completely die shortly after. There's a chance that this is all a software issue and could be fixed, but I won't hold my breath.

Final Thoughts

It's possible that my Brave 8 was a dud, but that wouldn't explain all the issues in my opinion. I checked out others' experiences with this camera, and it's clear that a number of these problems are widespread.

On the bright side, with most of the issues I encountered (maybe with the exception of the camera now struggling to fully boot) being software-related, I am hopeful that they can be resolved in future software updates. That said, even if this was a completely operational camera, compared to competing options at this price point, I think it still falls short in terms of video/photo quality and connectivity. Perhaps a steep discount and some major software updates could make this worth considering.

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