The Hero 7 White: A Camera with Some Major Shortcomings

In our previous coverage, we've seen some impressive features from the GoPro Hero 7 series, particularly the white variant. However, there are still some major shortfalls that need to be addressed. One of the biggest disappointments is the lack of replaceable lens covers. Unlike the DJI Osmo Action and even the hero 6 black line, the Hero 7 White does not have this feature. This means that if you scratch the lens, it's not just a matter of replacing the cover; the entire camera could be rendered unusable for video capabilities.

Another major letdown is the camera's compatibility with GoPro-style mounts and accessories. Firmware has yet to fix this issue, which is frustrating given the camera's proper shape and compatibility with third-party gimbals. The Hero 7 White can use Kage's dual prong legs, but internal hardware and software-wise, it doesn't work with other GoPro accessories. This means that users who want to utilize audio adapters or Karma grips are out of luck.

Ease of Use: Still a Work in Progress

One area where the Hero 7 White shines is its ease of use. The camera's intuitive design makes it accessible to anyone looking to capture high-quality action footage. However, GoPro has failed to unlock some features that were previously available on older models, such as the hero five black. This lack of innovation in terms of user interface is disappointing, especially considering that some cameras offer more features for a lower price point.

Redemption Pillar: Turning the World of Action Upside Down

The stabilization on the Hero 7 White is still respectable, although it's not quite at the level of some other cameras. The camera's stabilization is roughly equivalent to that of the hero six black line, which was once considered the best in the market. While this makes walking around and filming a breeze, it also means that the camera can't compete with more advanced models like the DJI Osmo Action.

In our vlogging test, we saw that the Hero 7 White's stabilization allowed for smooth footage without needing additional accessories like tripods or gimbels. This is a big plus, especially for users who want to capture high-quality video on the go. However, at the end of the day, the Hero 7 White is still not without its flaws.

A Camera that Lacks Credibility

When released, the Hero 7 White was marketed as a camera that could record in a way that it couldn't – which was misleading and frustrating for users. The camera's non-removable battery is another major drawback, especially considering that some other cameras of similar price point offer more functionality.

If you can find the Hero 7 White on sale for around $100, it might be worth considering. However, at a list price of $199, there are better options available – like used or refurbished hero five black cameras. The latter has significantly more features and is still functional despite being an older model. If GoPro wants to make the Hero 7 White a viable camera option, they need to lower its price point to around $150 standard.

Conclusion

The Hero 7 White is a camera that can be overlooked due to its numerous shortcomings. While it has some impressive features like its stabilization and ease of use, these are not enough to outweigh its major flaws. At the current list price of $199, there are better options available for users who want a high-quality action camera with more features and functionality.

However, if you can find the Hero 7 White on sale for around $100, it might be worth considering – especially when compared to other cameras in this class. The Hero seven white still belongs to each of those three categories - which are - garbage, a viable option that is hard to recommend but not bad, and garbage again

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe GoPro Hero 7 white my least favorite action camera of a recent memory when it was released it fibbed on its box charged the same amount for less features than previous models and irritated me so bad that I felt the need to shout it from the mountaintops of the mountaintops of a small YouTube channel to say that it wasn't worth buying however some firmware updates and finding this at a local store for almost a hundred dollars might be able to change my mind anything's possible I guess so almost a year later is the GoPro Hero 7 white still garbage let's find out what's up everyone I'm the everyday dead and if I can figure it out you can figure it out so let's get this right out of the way this isn't a GoPro bashing video in any way I love their hero 7 black and to this day it remains the best action camera ever made the DJI Osmo action is a better vlogging style camera but nothing is better than the hero 7 black for straight-up action that doesn't save this one yet so let's see what's been changed since the last time we talked about this previously crazily disappointing camera and to start off let's cover the updated basic specs of the camera because some have been updated since October of 2018 the GoPro Hero 7 white has a something size sensor inside of it that hasn't changed and it still can record up to 10 megapixel stills and here's the most exciting part it can actually record at up to 1080p 60 frames per second now that I mean that doesn't exactly sound earth-shattering or groundbreaking that doesn't sound exciting but if you remember back to my original video the hero seven white shipped in a box that said it could record 1080p 60 but in actuality recorded in 1440p and while yes that sounds better because more numbers are always better right that's just human nature the deal of that though is that it was at a four by three aspect ratio as opposed to what you're seeing right now which is a standard 16 by 9 aspect ratio so if you wanted to upload to a space like YouTube you would need to have that exported in 16 by 9 which means either you would need to crop in on the image or you just have to live with some black bars on the side which is not that's not ok if you don't know cameras you don't necessarily know that you're walking into that problem but now their box and camera are actually synced up and agreeing so hooray physically I mean there is no change my biggest complaint about the hero seven White has always been and will always be the lack of a removable battery now I don't mind the GoPro sessions having the same feature but they're like their tiny little box cameras I mean they're super small they're not a fully sized GoPro or GoPro clone this is kind of like a GoPro clone but enough jabbering I mean it's no secret by now that there are five gates that a camera has to pass for me to consider it an action camera not some creepy little fisheye distorted camera that nobody would ever use and those are the pillars first up video quality now it's gonna be in 1080p and besides the 1080p there isn't much to say here even back last year I thought the hero 7 White had perfectly usable image quality something I'll never say about GoPro cameras released up to this point of mid 2019 is that their image looks bad because it doesn't every single camera they've released that I've used and I started a few years ago with the hero 3 I mean it looks great and you get plenty of dynamic range and I actually like how the skin tones look in the automatic settings here more than I like on the hero 7 black I mean it just looks better now you are missing some protune features that the hero 7 black has but and that's some things that haven't been updated and are still lacking on the one I mean another thing is you do not get any selectable fields of view so you're basically stuck with 1080p in the wide format now that bothered me and it still bothers me at a $200 price point but buying this for almost half of that I'm less than inclined to complain and that's a running theme that you'll hear in the rest of this video is for $200 the camera still arguably isn't worth it but sale prices make those complaints less applicable because we'll talk here in a little bit the competition then is much better for this camera image quality isn't the only thing that matters when it comes to overall video capabilities of a camera audio is just as if not more important and the hero 7 white does have decent audio recording chops now if I wanted to compare this to an existing camera I'd rate it around the hero 6 black levels which were never as good as a non waterproof camera like the Sony FDR X 3000 but it always been perfectly acceptable to me I actually think this is pretty good for getting audio and while this is not normally a pillar of action let's hop outside real quick for a vlogging test so you can see the image and the audio all of it paired together really quickly see out there cool welcome to the vlogging test of the GoPro Hero 7 wife now I have not used this camera and about what like six seven months when it was first initially released we had some very big disappointments with it but something that I have never complained about is the image quality or the stabilization both of which you can see right now so we're just hand were just walking around this field because it's like a beautiful day outside happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there we're currently recording this on Father's Day and yeah I have never had a problem with either the image quality the stabilization or the audio quality all of which you can see right now and again what else do you really need if you're going to be using a camera for vlogging you need those three things so as much as the problems I had with the camera started out with when it was or initially released yeah I have less of those problems now especially now where we're actually recording in 1080p we're not recording in 1440 and we'll need to crop it later this legitimately has 1080p now so 16 by 9 aspect ratio you know it's 20 19 who knew that we had to still clear those hurdles yeah yeah this is the image quality this is the article this is the vlogging capabilities if you wanted to get the GoPro Hero 7 white this is still garbage you'll have to keep watching the video see you there the next pillar the GoPro Hero said the white needs to redeem itself on is durability nothing has changed still the same still the same body physically there have been no update so it is still the exact same body design I mean it's still able to take a hit and still able to go underwater without a case to 33 feet or 10 meters I mean that doesn't mean bad though right I mean I dedicated a whole video to me destroying one of these and frankly I was pretty darn impressed with its durability it took the hits and it just kept on going for longer than I had any expectation for it to last and I would say that this is durable enough to be considered a legitimate GoPro in my opinion one quick note though if you haven't seen any of my other coverage about the hero 7 white something the hero 7 black and the DJI Osmo action both have our replaceable lens covers so you don't need to brick the whole camera if you get a scratch across the lens you're not going to be permanently disabled and your video capabilities if you scratch that but the seven white is lacking this feature this is just all-in-one so don't be too rough on the don't be too rough on the lens thirdly in our redemption pillar story is another big disappointment here and that's compatibility with GoPro style mounts and accessories firmware has not yet fixed this I don't even know if you could fix this in firmware and why this is disappointing is on the one hand this camera is properly shaped and can be used with third-party gimbals and the entirety of the GoPro mount ecosystem because it's included Kage does have those dual prong legs on it so it will work with all GoPro mounts pretty standard stuff but internal hardware and software wise the hero 7 white doesn't work with any of the other om GoPro accessories so if you want to use the audio adapter nope you want to use the karma grip nope none of the exciting things that GoPro has going for it you can't use and that's pretty disappointing if you are looking to buy this camera is it not necessarily as a camera itself but if you're looking to buy an action system another big and no change pillar from last time is my personal favorite ease of use and much like I said back in October sure the way to make something easier to use is to take out some of the features right I mean the less buttons you can actually have the ability to press then the cameras just overall objectively going to be easier to use right probably not the way I'd do it but and sadly no updates have come out unlocking features so yeah still the same level of usability I mean that's not to say that I am making that sound a little worse than it is I mean something GoPro has always done right is they have some of the easiest user interfaces and the hero 7 white still works great but like I said in the beginning I do wish it had some more selectable fields of view I do wish it had access to Pro Tunes I wish it had more features unlocked because there are cameras out there for less than this that do have those features and last but certainly not least we have the pillar that is turning the world of action upside down stabilization it's the new arms race for action cameras with both GoPro and DJI looking to take the lead but this isn't a class-leading camera this is the hero seven white class-leading in here seven white don't belong to each other but in all fairness the stabilization here was always acceptable much like audio it's still roughly the same equivalent as the hero six black line which at the time was the best on the market I mean it was the best at one point and like we saw in the vlogging test this makes walking around and talking to this camera super simple and gives you very usable footage even when hand-holding me I mean even just doing this you'll be able to get nice locked off type of videos without needing too many additional accessories like tripods or Gimbels and I hate bringing a bunch of crap with me when I go to make videos I like just something like this that small works great but at the end of the day is the GoPro Hero seven white still garbage because it was when it was first released I mean at least now they aren't misleading people with the box art saying the camera was recording in a method that it didn't or couldn't it still has a non removable battery and it lacks several recording modes that older cameras of the same price point could do if you can only find this for the list price of $199 I still don't recommend it you could get a used or refurbished hero five black for less money and it has way more functionality than the Hero seven white ever could this is just a camera that you'll see on the shelfing like hey it's a GoPro we should buy that not knowing that there could be better options out there but if like me you're able to find this on sale somewhere for around a hundred bucks then I would give this a shot at that price point I can overlook some of its major faults because at a hundred dollars the competition doesn't really offer anything like these levels of functionality I mean there are other action cameras out there for the price but nothing that offers this level I mean if they really want to make the hero seven white a viable camera they need to cut this price when I say they I mean GoPro to around 150 bucks standard that would make it much easier for me to actually recommend on a consistent basis thanks for watchingthe GoPro Hero 7 white my least favorite action camera of a recent memory when it was released it fibbed on its box charged the same amount for less features than previous models and irritated me so bad that I felt the need to shout it from the mountaintops of the mountaintops of a small YouTube channel to say that it wasn't worth buying however some firmware updates and finding this at a local store for almost a hundred dollars might be able to change my mind anything's possible I guess so almost a year later is the GoPro Hero 7 white still garbage let's find out what's up everyone I'm the everyday dead and if I can figure it out you can figure it out so let's get this right out of the way this isn't a GoPro bashing video in any way I love their hero 7 black and to this day it remains the best action camera ever made the DJI Osmo action is a better vlogging style camera but nothing is better than the hero 7 black for straight-up action that doesn't save this one yet so let's see what's been changed since the last time we talked about this previously crazily disappointing camera and to start off let's cover the updated basic specs of the camera because some have been updated since October of 2018 the GoPro Hero 7 white has a something size sensor inside of it that hasn't changed and it still can record up to 10 megapixel stills and here's the most exciting part it can actually record at up to 1080p 60 frames per second now that I mean that doesn't exactly sound earth-shattering or groundbreaking that doesn't sound exciting but if you remember back to my original video the hero seven white shipped in a box that said it could record 1080p 60 but in actuality recorded in 1440p and while yes that sounds better because more numbers are always better right that's just human nature the deal of that though is that it was at a four by three aspect ratio as opposed to what you're seeing right now which is a standard 16 by 9 aspect ratio so if you wanted to upload to a space like YouTube you would need to have that exported in 16 by 9 which means either you would need to crop in on the image or you just have to live with some black bars on the side which is not that's not ok if you don't know cameras you don't necessarily know that you're walking into that problem but now their box and camera are actually synced up and agreeing so hooray physically I mean there is no change my biggest complaint about the hero seven White has always been and will always be the lack of a removable battery now I don't mind the GoPro sessions having the same feature but they're like their tiny little box cameras I mean they're super small they're not a fully sized GoPro or GoPro clone this is kind of like a GoPro clone but enough jabbering I mean it's no secret by now that there are five gates that a camera has to pass for me to consider it an action camera not some creepy little fisheye distorted camera that nobody would ever use and those are the pillars first up video quality now it's gonna be in 1080p and besides the 1080p there isn't much to say here even back last year I thought the hero 7 White had perfectly usable image quality something I'll never say about GoPro cameras released up to this point of mid 2019 is that their image looks bad because it doesn't every single camera they've released that I've used and I started a few years ago with the hero 3 I mean it looks great and you get plenty of dynamic range and I actually like how the skin tones look in the automatic settings here more than I like on the hero 7 black I mean it just looks better now you are missing some protune features that the hero 7 black has but and that's some things that haven't been updated and are still lacking on the one I mean another thing is you do not get any selectable fields of view so you're basically stuck with 1080p in the wide format now that bothered me and it still bothers me at a $200 price point but buying this for almost half of that I'm less than inclined to complain and that's a running theme that you'll hear in the rest of this video is for $200 the camera still arguably isn't worth it but sale prices make those complaints less applicable because we'll talk here in a little bit the competition then is much better for this camera image quality isn't the only thing that matters when it comes to overall video capabilities of a camera audio is just as if not more important and the hero 7 white does have decent audio recording chops now if I wanted to compare this to an existing camera I'd rate it around the hero 6 black levels which were never as good as a non waterproof camera like the Sony FDR X 3000 but it always been perfectly acceptable to me I actually think this is pretty good for getting audio and while this is not normally a pillar of action let's hop outside real quick for a vlogging test so you can see the image and the audio all of it paired together really quickly see out there cool welcome to the vlogging test of the GoPro Hero 7 wife now I have not used this camera and about what like six seven months when it was first initially released we had some very big disappointments with it but something that I have never complained about is the image quality or the stabilization both of which you can see right now so we're just hand were just walking around this field because it's like a beautiful day outside happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there we're currently recording this on Father's Day and yeah I have never had a problem with either the image quality the stabilization or the audio quality all of which you can see right now and again what else do you really need if you're going to be using a camera for vlogging you need those three things so as much as the problems I had with the camera started out with when it was or initially released yeah I have less of those problems now especially now where we're actually recording in 1080p we're not recording in 1440 and we'll need to crop it later this legitimately has 1080p now so 16 by 9 aspect ratio you know it's 20 19 who knew that we had to still clear those hurdles yeah yeah this is the image quality this is the article this is the vlogging capabilities if you wanted to get the GoPro Hero 7 white this is still garbage you'll have to keep watching the video see you there the next pillar the GoPro Hero said the white needs to redeem itself on is durability nothing has changed still the same still the same body physically there have been no update so it is still the exact same body design I mean it's still able to take a hit and still able to go underwater without a case to 33 feet or 10 meters I mean that doesn't mean bad though right I mean I dedicated a whole video to me destroying one of these and frankly I was pretty darn impressed with its durability it took the hits and it just kept on going for longer than I had any expectation for it to last and I would say that this is durable enough to be considered a legitimate GoPro in my opinion one quick note though if you haven't seen any of my other coverage about the hero 7 white something the hero 7 black and the DJI Osmo action both have our replaceable lens covers so you don't need to brick the whole camera if you get a scratch across the lens you're not going to be permanently disabled and your video capabilities if you scratch that but the seven white is lacking this feature this is just all-in-one so don't be too rough on the don't be too rough on the lens thirdly in our redemption pillar story is another big disappointment here and that's compatibility with GoPro style mounts and accessories firmware has not yet fixed this I don't even know if you could fix this in firmware and why this is disappointing is on the one hand this camera is properly shaped and can be used with third-party gimbals and the entirety of the GoPro mount ecosystem because it's included Kage does have those dual prong legs on it so it will work with all GoPro mounts pretty standard stuff but internal hardware and software wise the hero 7 white doesn't work with any of the other om GoPro accessories so if you want to use the audio adapter nope you want to use the karma grip nope none of the exciting things that GoPro has going for it you can't use and that's pretty disappointing if you are looking to buy this camera is it not necessarily as a camera itself but if you're looking to buy an action system another big and no change pillar from last time is my personal favorite ease of use and much like I said back in October sure the way to make something easier to use is to take out some of the features right I mean the less buttons you can actually have the ability to press then the cameras just overall objectively going to be easier to use right probably not the way I'd do it but and sadly no updates have come out unlocking features so yeah still the same level of usability I mean that's not to say that I am making that sound a little worse than it is I mean something GoPro has always done right is they have some of the easiest user interfaces and the hero 7 white still works great but like I said in the beginning I do wish it had some more selectable fields of view I do wish it had access to Pro Tunes I wish it had more features unlocked because there are cameras out there for less than this that do have those features and last but certainly not least we have the pillar that is turning the world of action upside down stabilization it's the new arms race for action cameras with both GoPro and DJI looking to take the lead but this isn't a class-leading camera this is the hero seven white class-leading in here seven white don't belong to each other but in all fairness the stabilization here was always acceptable much like audio it's still roughly the same equivalent as the hero six black line which at the time was the best on the market I mean it was the best at one point and like we saw in the vlogging test this makes walking around and talking to this camera super simple and gives you very usable footage even when hand-holding me I mean even just doing this you'll be able to get nice locked off type of videos without needing too many additional accessories like tripods or Gimbels and I hate bringing a bunch of crap with me when I go to make videos I like just something like this that small works great but at the end of the day is the GoPro Hero seven white still garbage because it was when it was first released I mean at least now they aren't misleading people with the box art saying the camera was recording in a method that it didn't or couldn't it still has a non removable battery and it lacks several recording modes that older cameras of the same price point could do if you can only find this for the list price of $199 I still don't recommend it you could get a used or refurbished hero five black for less money and it has way more functionality than the Hero seven white ever could this is just a camera that you'll see on the shelfing like hey it's a GoPro we should buy that not knowing that there could be better options out there but if like me you're able to find this on sale somewhere for around a hundred bucks then I would give this a shot at that price point I can overlook some of its major faults because at a hundred dollars the competition doesn't really offer anything like these levels of functionality I mean there are other action cameras out there for the price but nothing that offers this level I mean if they really want to make the hero seven white a viable camera they need to cut this price when I say they I mean GoPro to around 150 bucks standard that would make it much easier for me to actually recommend on a consistent basis thanks for watching\n"