Review: The GoPro Hero Drops Too Many Features to Be Worth the Cost

The GoPro Hero is the most confusing product I’ve reviewed in a while, and that’s entirely due to its name. Every year, GoPro releases a new Hero camera, so I’d forgive you for thinking “GoPro Hero” is just shorthand for its newest flagship. In actuality, the Hero is an entirely new type of device for GoPro—a budget device, released alongside the top-of-the-line Hero 13 Black, that seems intended to serve as an alternative.

It seems like a good bet—both the Insta360 Go 3S and the aging DJI Action 2 are smaller than the GoPro Hero, but the latter hasn’t seen an upgrade for three years, while the former is twice the price, seemingly putting GoPro in prime position to take over the mini cam field.

But I’m not sure this is the device that will accomplish that. The GoPro Hero is indeed a basic, effective, and aggressively priced 4K camera that’s much easier to slip into an everyday carry bag than a standard GoPro, but the loss of features required to hit that lower price point ironically makes it feel more niche than its full-featured bigger brother.

Small but basic

The GoPro Hero is half the price of the Hero 13 Black, so it makes sense that you lose out on quite a bit in the tradeoff. While the Hero 13 Black supports modular lenses, magnetic mounts, slow motion capture at up to 400 fps, and plenty of other tricks amateur filmmakers love, the budget Hero has none of that.

Instead, you just get basic 4K video capture, 2.7K@60 fps slo-mo, and 12 megapixel photos. There’s also an implementation of GoPro’s stabilization tech and built-in mounting fingers, but the appeal of this device is truly the price tag and the size.

The GoPro Hero 13 Black with a macro lens attachment (left) next to the GoPro Hero (right)
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

While the Hero 13 Black is 2.8 x 2 x 1.3 inches, the Hero is 2.2 x 1.9 x 1.1 inches. That might sound like splitting hairs, but when the two are side-by-side, the smaller Hero really does look like the 13 Black’s little brother, and that makes it feel more fun and realistic for casual use.

The problem is that casual video capture is already dominated by smartphones, so the real question becomes whether the Hero can do enough to better a device that’s already in your pocket.

A wealth of accessories

That’s where accessories come in. There’s a couple of advantages to using a GoPro over your phone, and one of those is immediate compatibility with GoPro’s wide range of add-ons. The GoPro Hero doesn’t work with every GoPro accessory out there, but it covers the basics.

Because of its built-in mounting fingers, the GoPro Hero can work with any GoPro camera mount, whether handheld, head-mounted, or chest-mounted. This immediately gives you great flexibility in how you shoot, and allowing for better hands-free control than you’d get with a phone out of the box. The catch is that the Hero doesn’t support most Bluetooth connections, so any mounts that utilize it (say, for shutter control) won’t be able to use those features.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

On the flip side, the smaller and more lightweight form factor does open up some convenient mounting possibilities. For instance, there’s the Floaty for Hero accessory, which can keep the camera on the surface of water (yes, there’s a tether point). I definitely wouldn’t want to try that with a phone, and while GoPro does sell Floaty cases for its other devices, I’d be nervous using one with the Hero’s more expensive sibling.

Unfortunately, once you leave mounts behind, the Hero starts to show its compromises a bit more. Neither its battery nor its lens are removable, so you can’t always keep a charged battery on hand to swap in as a backup, and you can’t use any lens mods to change how your camera sees the environment around it. Even clip-on accessories like the Light Mod, which adds some extra lighting to your shots, don’t work here—they’re simply too big to fit.

Plus, mounting isn’t totally foolproof. While you’ll generally be fine with devices that use GoPro’s mounting system, the Hero doesn’t have the same standard tripod screw hole as other GoPros, so navigating third-party mounts will be more difficult.

How the GoPro Hero actually shoots

The GoPro Hero is all about convenience. You won’t get as robust an experience as with a full-sized GoPro, but there are enough features that you won’t feel too hamstrung, and while regular GoPros aren’t that heavy, this one is definitely easier to stash in a small bag or purse to whip out at a moment’s notice.

That makes this a good fit for casual shots—maybe while you’re on vacation, or for use as a secondary or tertiary camera. The orientation lock is handy if you shoot a lot of vertical video, for instance, and the 1.76-inch rear LCD is good enough for navigating through the different shooting modes and previewing your footage.

You don’t lose every power user feature, either. While the Hero 13 Black is rated to be waterproof up to 33 feet, the 16 foot waterproofing on the Hero should still be good enough for surfers or casual snorkelers. Meanwhile, while stabilization isn’t present on the camera itself, it is automatically applied when you upload your footage to the Quik app (and while many of Quik’s features require a subscription, this one is free).

To test out actually using the Hero, I took it on a few bike rides and walks around my neighborhood, and I got roughly what I expected: The footage was good enough, but not quite equal to the professional level quality that you’d get from a bigger GoPro. The sensor is just smaller, with fewer active pixels (12MP vs 27.6MP on the Hero 13 Black). The aperture lets in less light, and the focal length is fixed at 15mm rather than being able to stretch from 12mm up to 39mm. This all adds up to shots that are still high resolution and perfectly serviceable for quick vlogs, but which miss out on some of the finer details you might expect from a higher-end device.

For example, I’d be comfortable putting raw footage from the Hero 13 Black on TV, but shots from the Hero would definitely need some Photoshop magic first. Even the 165 degree field-of-view, which sounds generous at first despite not matching the Hero 13 Black’s, loses some of its luster when you crop from 4:3 to more common aspect ratios like 16:9.

You also have to be careful how you mount the device. Because it’s so lightweight, it can flop around a bit during filming if you’re not careful. My footsteps tended to shake the camera when I wore it in a chest mount, but the same flopping didn’t happen when I was biking or just holding the camera handheld and walking, so make sure your camera is secure if you actually want your footage to be usable.

That said, the Quik app’s stabilization worked great for me, and I couldn’t discern a difference between it and the on-device stabilization of the Hero 13 Black. The only annoyance is that downloading footage to your phone eats up both time and storage space, but you can get around this by subscribing to the Quik app’s paid tier (starting at $50/year), which opens up cloud storage and automatic uploads.

Really, though, these complaints are minor, given the device’s price point. Colors in my test footage were still vibrant enough, and details on mid-range objects were easy enough to see. The field-of-view was a little constrained at times, and objects in the distance or in extreme close-ups lose out on some detail, but for the casual use cases this device is seemingly intended for, it works fine. Granted, maybe not as fine as an iPhone’s camera, but given the GoPro Hero is significantly smaller, cheaper, and more rugged, I’d say there are cases to be made for both.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

However, I do have one warning: Don’t bother using this thing at night, or for photos. Low light footage is just way too blurry, and photos invariably display a fisheye effect that’s much less noticeable in motion.

Battery life and heat

The GoPro Hero is smaller than a full-sized action camera, so its battery life is naturally shorter. While the GoPro Hero 13 Black has a 1,900mAh battery, the Hero cuts off at 1,255mAh. In real world tests, the Hero 13 Black lost about 20% battery after shooting on and off for an hour, while the Hero lost about 50%. While this isn’t the most scientific way to measure, I do feel it’s more in-line with how GoPros are actually used—quick clip captures, rather than extended filming sessions. The latter will simply fill up your SD card too quickly anyway.

This means you’ll definitely want to keep a charger with you if you plan to be out for more than a couple of hours. On the plus side, making the device smaller doesn’t seem to have increased the thermals that much. I’ve had prior, full-sized GoPros crash on me because they got too hot, but I’ve never got that issue with either the Hero 13 Black or the Hero.

Should you buy the GoPro Hero?

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

The GoPro Hero 13 is an awkward spot. While it seems like the more approachable GoPro at first blush, it might actually be more of a power user device. That’s because, for low impact activities, a phone will likely do you fine, while capturing better footage (thanks to simply having more space for its sensors). Meanwhile, for more strenuous activities, you’ll likely want to go with a full-sized GoPro, if you can swing it.

That means the GoPro Hero is best suited for situations where you want to capture from multiple vantage points, or supplement your main camera’s footage with a few shots from the Hero, or for situations where your stunts are so strenuous that you want something a little less expensive to film with, just in case.

With that in mind, it is worth acknowledging that at $220, the GoPro Hero is much cheaper than either a smartphone or the Hero 13 Black. I can envision people buying multiple Heroes to slip into their bags and have on-hand just in case, especially since it’s smaller (if thicker) than a phone, but you have to be a specific sort of vlogger to want to do that.

Ultimately, I think the Hero is something you buy to fix a specific problem, rather than as a general purpose action camera. That doesn’t make it bad, but it does mean its audience is going to be a niche of the already niche action camera market. With that in mind, I’d recommend holding off on purchasing one until you find yourself in one of the situations I outlined above. Despite seeming more approachable at the outset, the Hero is too limited to be your first, or only, GoPro device.