GoPro
GoPro HERO (2024)
Half the weight of a Hero 13 and about a third of the menu depth. This is GoPro's answer to the question of what an action camera looks like when you strip out everything a beginner never touches: 4K30, 12 MP stills, a touchscreen, HyperSmooth, and nothing else. There is no horizon lock, no log profile, no removable battery, no front screen, no GPS and no 60 fps at 4K. The sensor drops to 1/2.3-inch, which is the smallest in the modern GoPro line and about 40 per cent less area than the Hero 13's. In exchange it disappears on a helmet at 86 g and takes every GoPro mount ever made. As a first action camera or a fourth angle it is well judged; as a replacement for a flagship it is not close.
Sensor area against the rest of the catalogue
Derived from the standard optical-format table rather than copied off a spec sheet, because makers print a fraction that hides it. The table and the arithmetic.
Battery, with the small print
- Maker’s claim
- 1 h 40 min at 1080p30 continuous, built-in battery
- Third-party test
- None collected. We publish a tested figure only where a named outlet has run one and stated its conditions.
Specifications
What the GoPro Premium plan gates
~$49.99 a year, which is why the year-one figure on this page is ~$229 rather than ~$179.
- •Unlimited cloud storage and automatic upload for GoPro footage
- •Guaranteed camera replacement, no questions asked
- •Up to 50% off GoPro accessories
Features
- ●86 g body, the lightest GoPro with a screen
- ●4K30 and 2.7K60 for 2x slow motion
- ●1.76-inch rear touchscreen
- ●HyperSmooth stabilisation
- ●Waterproof to 5 m with no housing
- ●Standard GoPro folding fingers
Strengths
- +Genuinely tiny and light — you stop noticing it on a helmet
- +Simplest interface GoPro has shipped; there is almost nothing to get wrong
- +Takes the whole GoPro mount ecosystem despite the smaller body
- +Under $200 for real 4K and working stabilisation
Drawbacks
- −No horizon lock, which is the feature that makes handlebar footage watchable
- −4K caps at 30 fps, so there is no slow motion above 2.7K
- −Sealed battery and 8-bit colour with no log profile
- −1/2.3-inch sensor struggles the moment the light drops
What owners say
Summarised from owner discussions and published long-term reviews.
The tiny HERO does one thing well and owners agree on what it is: it is small and light enough that it gets used. At 86 g with a real touchscreen it disappears on a helmet or a cap, and it costs little enough to be a fourth angle or a child's first camera.
The frustrations are consistent and mostly about the software rather than the picture. Setup effectively requires a phone, and owners without one describe the process as close to unusable. A steady stream of posts report the camera refusing to record 4K, which is almost always a microSD card below the required speed class, but the camera does not say so. And there is no horizon lock, which is the feature people miss the moment they put it on a bike.
The honest positioning from owners is that this is a second camera or a starter, and that anyone expecting it to replace a Hero 13 will be disappointed inside a week.
What owners like
- +The size and weight are what owners actually notice — at 86 g it goes places a full-size Hero does not get mounted
- +It takes the whole GoPro mount ecosystem despite the smaller body
- +Simple enough that owners hand it to children and to people who have never used an action camera
- +Under $200 for real 4K, which is the cheapest a GoPro-branded 4K camera has been
Common complaints
- −Setup without a smartphone is described as atrocious by owners who tried it — the camera assumes the app
- −Several owners report the camera refusing to record 4K, which usually turns out to be a microSD card that is not fast enough but is not diagnosed clearly
- −No horizon lock at all, which is the omission owners regret most once they mount it on a bike
- −4K caps at 30 fps, so there is no slow motion above 2.7K
- −A recurring thread title in the discussion is simply regret at buying it instead of spending more
Questions owners keep asking
Why won't my HERO record in 4K?
Can I use it without a phone?
Does it have horizon lock?
GoPro HERO (2024), head to head
Cameras people look at alongside it
More from GoPro →
Take a Hero 11, delete the screens, the stereo mics, the GPS and the removable battery, and add a second set of mounting fingers on the back — that is the Mini, and it is a far more coherent product than the subtraction list suggests. One button starts and stops recording. There is no menu to fumble with cold hands, no screen to crack, and two mounting axes so it sits flat against a helmet or a chest harness in either orientation. The imaging is unchanged: the same 5.3K60, the same 8:7 sensor, the same horizon lock. What you lose is any ability to frame a shot or swap a dead battery, which rules it out as anyone's only camera and makes it a very good second one.
GoPro
GoPro LIT HERO
Four LEDs around the lens, and an entire product built to justify them. The LIT HERO is the 2024 HERO body with 4K60 instead of 4K30, a magnetic mount, and a ring light bright enough to be useful at arm's length in a dark bar, a tent, or a night ride. Whether that is worth ninety dollars over the plain HERO depends entirely on whether you shoot after sunset; the sensor is the same small 1/2.3-inch chip, so the light is compensating for a limitation rather than adding a capability. Reviewers have found it the most confusing camera in GoPro's line precisely because it sits above the HERO on price and below the Hero 12 on everything but the LEDs. The bright spot is the 109-minute rating at 4K60, which is better than any full-size Hero manages at that setting.
GoPro
GoPro HERO11 Black
This is the camera that introduced the tall 8:7 sensor readout, and it is the reason the Hero body has barely changed since. Shooting the full 27 MP frame and cropping to 16:9, 9:16 or 4:5 in the edit is a workflow rather than a spec, and it is still the single most useful thing GoPro has added in five years. The Hero 11 keeps GPS, which the Hero 12 dropped, and the older HyperSmooth 5.0 is a hair behind 6.0 without being visibly worse. Where it falls behind is GP-Log, which arrived a generation later, and the 1/4-20 thread, which did not. GoPro still lists it on its own store, and at a street price under $250 it is the cheapest route into 5.3K60 with full horizon lock.