GoPro Hero 9 review - 5K powerhouse under $500
# A Comprehensive Review of the GoPro Hero 9: Embracing New Features and Improvements
## Introduction
The world of action cameras is constantly evolving, with manufacturers striving to innovate and deliver cutting-edge features. For enthusiasts who eagerly await each new release, the GoPro Hero series has always been a favorite. This article delves into the latest offering from GoPro—the Hero 9—highlighting its standout features and improvements that set it apart from its predecessors.
## Design and Hardware Enhancements
The GoPro Hero 9 boasts a robust build with notable size increases compared to its predecessor, the Hero 8. The camera is slightly thicker, wider, and taller, yet this hasn't hindered its portability or mount compatibility. It retains the same dual mounting prongs, ensuring seamless integration with existing accessories. The larger size also introduces a bigger back touchscreen, measuring 2.27 inches diagonally, enhancing usability with vivid colors and essential information like battery life and storage space.
## Front Screen Innovation
One of the most significant additions to the Hero 9 is its front-facing screen. This feature addresses a long-standing inconvenience: users often find themselves framing shots without visual feedback, leading to guesswork. The front screen allows for real-time monitoring, making it easier to compose shots and eliminating the need to constantly check your phone. While there's a slight lag during recording, the benefits far outweigh this minor drawback.
## Battery Life and Power Efficiency
Recognizing the increased power demands from new features like the front screen, GoPro has upgraded the battery capacity from 1220mAh on the Hero 8 to 1720mAh. This change is crucial for sustained use, especially with heavy usage requiring two batteries for a full day. However, during more relaxed days, users can manage with a single charge, as observed in vacation scenarios.
## Resolution and Video Capabilities
The Hero 9 introduces an impressive array of resolution options, including the new 5K format, which is a significant leap from previous models. This upgrade ensures crisp video quality, complemented by GoPro's signature vibrant color palette and enhanced stabilization with Hyper Smooth 3.0. The camera also offers modes like linear frame horizontal leveling and spherical image capture via mods, expanding creative possibilities.
## Photo Quality and_hdr Features
The 20-megapixel sensor delivers excellent photo quality, though HDR processing can be slow and sometimes overprocesses shadows. Disabling HDR yields punchier, brighter images, but enthusiasts might appreciate the inclusion of an astrophotography mode in future updates.
## Firmware and Connectivity Improvements
The latest firmware for the Hero 9 brings improvements in image clarity, exposure, and touch sensitivity. Enhanced connectivity options include mods like the Max Lens Mod, expanding the camera's versatility with wider frames and spherical capture capabilities. While there are limitations, such as reduced resolution when using mods, the creative potential is immense.
## Competitive Pricing
Priced at $449 (or $349 with a GoPro Plus subscription), the Hero 9 competes favorably despite its premium features. Compared to alternatives like DJI Osmo and Insta360, it offers superior color reproduction and stabilization, justifying its price point.
## Conclusion
The GoPro Hero 9 emerges as a formidable contender in the action camera market, blending robust hardware with innovative features. Its front screen, improved battery life, and expanded resolution options make it an attractive choice for enthusiasts seeking top-tier performance. While not flawless, the Hero 9 solidifies GoPro's position at the forefront of action photography and videography.
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This article provides a detailed exploration of the GoPro Hero 9, ensuring that every aspect discussed in the transcription is fully represented, offering readers an informative and engaging overview of this latest innovation in action cameras.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enjust about every month i'm testing a new camera but the months that i get an action camera are by far my favorite anything for the verge all right we are headed up into prospect park because i shot all the test footage on the hero9 in nature and totally my apartment's just not going to cut it on camera let's do it the gopro hero 9. it is more robust in almost every single way it's got a bigger battery a bigger body it's got bigger batter photo and video resolutions and for the first time ever it comes in a reusable case that is completely plastic free which honestly thank god i i love to see that but first bigger thing it's actual physical size it is noticeably larger than last year's hero8 a bit thicker a bit wider a bit taller and this never got in the way of where i wanted to mount it or how it felt to carry it around and it still has the same size dual mounting prongs for use with all previous action camera mounts you might have with the larger size comes a larger back touchscreen too it's 2.27 inches diagonally it has that same usbc microsd card slot and battery compartment on one side along with the start stop button up on the top and the power and mode button on the side underneath the mode button there's also this like weird latch looking piece that i really thought was removable it is it is not gopro explained that this is a drain mic basically it's the first mic to drain of water when you go from being underwater to above water so you can get that sweet underwater to above water audio switch done quick how'd you do tech is a tool and i certainly treat it as such and within my two weeks of using the hero9 and absolutely not going easy on it there's no scratches or dings to be found overall the fear of breaking this camera is just non-existent if the lens were to get scratched though gopro brought back a feature that the 8 didn't have but the 7 did and uh well i missed it on the eight a removable lens cover i think this creates a much better way of mounting nd filters and lens mods which i'll get to in a little bit but unfortunately if you have nd filters for the hero 7 they will not fit on the hero9 there's no backwards compatibility here okay and the next bigger thing which also comes in the hardware department and my favorite new feature to the hero9 is this front screen i would say 80 of the time when i'm using a gopro i am facing the front of the camera when framing the shot which leads to my favorite tradition of shooting with a gopro and that's what i call the gopro face it's like that first frame that you get when you click record and you're like still kind of like hoping that the shot is like framed well if you shoot on a gopro you know what i mean i'm usually putting the camera in a location that i can't get behind to see the frame and i'll be honest with you it takes too much time still for me to pull out my phone to check the frame to make sure it's all good and i always just kind of risk it but with having a front-facing screen i can actually see my frame while mounting the camera and that is huge like dudes i cannot stress this enough that is huge and the osmo action had this and i loved it on that camera and i'm just so happy to see it come to gopro's line within the settings menu you can also change the screen ratio of the front screen what information it displays or toggle it on and off there's a bit of a lag on that front screen when you're recording but otherwise the colors are vivid and i was able to see all the information i needed such as battery life and card space very clearly with more screens though comes more power use so gopro bumped up the battery from 1220 milliamp hours on the hero 8 to 1720 milliamp hours on the hero 9. for heavy use two batteries will still be needed to get through a full day much like on the hero8 but during my very chill vacation days when i was only turning it on to use it and then turning it right off and really only watching playback once i was back at the cabin at night i was able to get through one day on one battery which is right on par with the hero8 oh and i also always had both the front and back screens on because why not okay the next bigger thing resolution this camera's 20 megapixel sensor can record in all right here we go 5k 3024 4k 60 30 24 2.7 k 120 60 30 24 1080 240 120 60 30 24. wowie it's almost too many options like i just don't think i could possibly use all of those but i'm sure there is a use case for every single one now that 5k that that's new and it is crisp personally i dig the gopro color option that is super punchy in the saturation and keeps a high level of contrast and pair those vibrant colors with the amazing in-camera stabilization and bingo bango you have some really nice looking footage that if you're outputting in 4k you can even punch in and re-frame a little bit with and speaking of stabilization there is even a bigger i guess more robust hyper smooth 3.0 as opposed to the 2.0 that we had in the 8 and it's still incredible i mean i am constantly impressed with hyper smooth and new this year is an in-camera horizontal leveling option when shooting the linear frame which is a bit cropped in from the wide frame to a point this keeps the horizon level on the screen straight out of the camera there's also a new duration capture and a schedule capture mode for time lapses and also a hindsight mode which can save the last 15 or 30 seconds of video that happened before you hit the shutter button now the one kind of downside to this is that it does run the battery down just a bit more because technically the camera is constantly recording it's beautiful the photos from the 20 megapixel sensor are pretty good and i was a bit disappointed with the speed at which the hdr photos need to process and i was not overly impressed with how the shadows are brought up to a bit of extreme levels in hdr mode in my personal opinion but with the hdr turned off the photos are punchy they're bright and they're crisp the next step would truly be adding an astrophotography mode to this thing hidden hint nudge nudge gopro last but not least gopro is releasing some mods with the hero 9 and more specifically the max lens mod now last spring they released a media mod for the hero 8 which had a directional mic on it it had hdmi port on it it even had like a cold shoe mount on it which is really cool and they're going to have one of those for the hero 9 as well but for the first time ever they're releasing a lens mod and that's this max lens mod that i currently can't get the case off of hold on yeah okay there it is anyway this creates a little bit wider frame on your hero9 and it also allows for complete horizontal leveling no matter the orientation of the camera because it creates a spherical image onto the sensor now with that you can only record up to 2.7 k which is a bit of a downfall but if i'm being honest my favorite use case of this mod was putting it on the hero 9 and not telling the hero 9 that i put it on and then it created this like awesome circle image that looked like a you know og fisheye look oh i feel like i'm in a music video good morning buds this video goes live in 24 hours and i just got the final firmware for the gopro hero 9. uh what you've been seeing from the hero 9 is pre-production firmware so let's go out and shoot so right on yeah gopro claims that this latest version of firmware has some crisper image quality it has improved exposure and then it also improved touch sensitivity i found those all to be true footage looks great camera's super touch responsive um and the images is of course hella crisp so uh yeah firmware looks good gopro so the hero9 wowie i mean they brought back the removable lenses and they're rolling out mods it's got a bigger battery larger sensor it does 5k video and most importantly they finally made the front screen useful but for all these big improvements there is a bigger price tag it's available today starting at 449 or 349 on gopro's website when you also purchase a one-year subscription to gopro plus now in my mind 449 is still a reasonable price for bigger everything sure you can grab the hero8 black for 350 or dji's osmo action for 250 but neither of those cameras can shoot at 5k and then there's insta 360s 1r with that one inch sensor mod for 500 but that's 50 more expensive and i prefer the color that the gopro puts out add that all up and well the biggest baddest action camera in the game right now i think it's the gopro hero 9. is the gopro back on top in terms of action cameras is it thinking again let me know down below thank you guys so much for tuning in it's officially september we are gonna have so much coming your way so be sure to be sure so be sure to tune in and check it all out and okay bye budsjust about every month i'm testing a new camera but the months that i get an action camera are by far my favorite anything for the verge all right we are headed up into prospect park because i shot all the test footage on the hero9 in nature and totally my apartment's just not going to cut it on camera let's do it the gopro hero 9. it is more robust in almost every single way it's got a bigger battery a bigger body it's got bigger batter photo and video resolutions and for the first time ever it comes in a reusable case that is completely plastic free which honestly thank god i i love to see that but first bigger thing it's actual physical size it is noticeably larger than last year's hero8 a bit thicker a bit wider a bit taller and this never got in the way of where i wanted to mount it or how it felt to carry it around and it still has the same size dual mounting prongs for use with all previous action camera mounts you might have with the larger size comes a larger back touchscreen too it's 2.27 inches diagonally it has that same usbc microsd card slot and battery compartment on one side along with the start stop button up on the top and the power and mode button on the side underneath the mode button there's also this like weird latch looking piece that i really thought was removable it is it is not gopro explained that this is a drain mic basically it's the first mic to drain of water when you go from being underwater to above water so you can get that sweet underwater to above water audio switch done quick how'd you do tech is a tool and i certainly treat it as such and within my two weeks of using the hero9 and absolutely not going easy on it there's no scratches or dings to be found overall the fear of breaking this camera is just non-existent if the lens were to get scratched though gopro brought back a feature that the 8 didn't have but the 7 did and uh well i missed it on the eight a removable lens cover i think this creates a much better way of mounting nd filters and lens mods which i'll get to in a little bit but unfortunately if you have nd filters for the hero 7 they will not fit on the hero9 there's no backwards compatibility here okay and the next bigger thing which also comes in the hardware department and my favorite new feature to the hero9 is this front screen i would say 80 of the time when i'm using a gopro i am facing the front of the camera when framing the shot which leads to my favorite tradition of shooting with a gopro and that's what i call the gopro face it's like that first frame that you get when you click record and you're like still kind of like hoping that the shot is like framed well if you shoot on a gopro you know what i mean i'm usually putting the camera in a location that i can't get behind to see the frame and i'll be honest with you it takes too much time still for me to pull out my phone to check the frame to make sure it's all good and i always just kind of risk it but with having a front-facing screen i can actually see my frame while mounting the camera and that is huge like dudes i cannot stress this enough that is huge and the osmo action had this and i loved it on that camera and i'm just so happy to see it come to gopro's line within the settings menu you can also change the screen ratio of the front screen what information it displays or toggle it on and off there's a bit of a lag on that front screen when you're recording but otherwise the colors are vivid and i was able to see all the information i needed such as battery life and card space very clearly with more screens though comes more power use so gopro bumped up the battery from 1220 milliamp hours on the hero 8 to 1720 milliamp hours on the hero 9. for heavy use two batteries will still be needed to get through a full day much like on the hero8 but during my very chill vacation days when i was only turning it on to use it and then turning it right off and really only watching playback once i was back at the cabin at night i was able to get through one day on one battery which is right on par with the hero8 oh and i also always had both the front and back screens on because why not okay the next bigger thing resolution this camera's 20 megapixel sensor can record in all right here we go 5k 3024 4k 60 30 24 2.7 k 120 60 30 24 1080 240 120 60 30 24. wowie it's almost too many options like i just don't think i could possibly use all of those but i'm sure there is a use case for every single one now that 5k that that's new and it is crisp personally i dig the gopro color option that is super punchy in the saturation and keeps a high level of contrast and pair those vibrant colors with the amazing in-camera stabilization and bingo bango you have some really nice looking footage that if you're outputting in 4k you can even punch in and re-frame a little bit with and speaking of stabilization there is even a bigger i guess more robust hyper smooth 3.0 as opposed to the 2.0 that we had in the 8 and it's still incredible i mean i am constantly impressed with hyper smooth and new this year is an in-camera horizontal leveling option when shooting the linear frame which is a bit cropped in from the wide frame to a point this keeps the horizon level on the screen straight out of the camera there's also a new duration capture and a schedule capture mode for time lapses and also a hindsight mode which can save the last 15 or 30 seconds of video that happened before you hit the shutter button now the one kind of downside to this is that it does run the battery down just a bit more because technically the camera is constantly recording it's beautiful the photos from the 20 megapixel sensor are pretty good and i was a bit disappointed with the speed at which the hdr photos need to process and i was not overly impressed with how the shadows are brought up to a bit of extreme levels in hdr mode in my personal opinion but with the hdr turned off the photos are punchy they're bright and they're crisp the next step would truly be adding an astrophotography mode to this thing hidden hint nudge nudge gopro last but not least gopro is releasing some mods with the hero 9 and more specifically the max lens mod now last spring they released a media mod for the hero 8 which had a directional mic on it it had hdmi port on it it even had like a cold shoe mount on it which is really cool and they're going to have one of those for the hero 9 as well but for the first time ever they're releasing a lens mod and that's this max lens mod that i currently can't get the case off of hold on yeah okay there it is anyway this creates a little bit wider frame on your hero9 and it also allows for complete horizontal leveling no matter the orientation of the camera because it creates a spherical image onto the sensor now with that you can only record up to 2.7 k which is a bit of a downfall but if i'm being honest my favorite use case of this mod was putting it on the hero 9 and not telling the hero 9 that i put it on and then it created this like awesome circle image that looked like a you know og fisheye look oh i feel like i'm in a music video good morning buds this video goes live in 24 hours and i just got the final firmware for the gopro hero 9. uh what you've been seeing from the hero 9 is pre-production firmware so let's go out and shoot so right on yeah gopro claims that this latest version of firmware has some crisper image quality it has improved exposure and then it also improved touch sensitivity i found those all to be true footage looks great camera's super touch responsive um and the images is of course hella crisp so uh yeah firmware looks good gopro so the hero9 wowie i mean they brought back the removable lenses and they're rolling out mods it's got a bigger battery larger sensor it does 5k video and most importantly they finally made the front screen useful but for all these big improvements there is a bigger price tag it's available today starting at 449 or 349 on gopro's website when you also purchase a one-year subscription to gopro plus now in my mind 449 is still a reasonable price for bigger everything sure you can grab the hero8 black for 350 or dji's osmo action for 250 but neither of those cameras can shoot at 5k and then there's insta 360s 1r with that one inch sensor mod for 500 but that's 50 more expensive and i prefer the color that the gopro puts out add that all up and well the biggest baddest action camera in the game right now i think it's the gopro hero 9. is the gopro back on top in terms of action cameras is it thinking again let me know down below thank you guys so much for tuning in it's officially september we are gonna have so much coming your way so be sure to be sure so be sure to tune in and check it all out and okay bye buds\n"