Our method
How we compare action cameras
There is no test lab behind this site and no staff. ActionCamList is a catalogue: 42 action and 360 cameras from 8 brands, each written up on the same sheet so a $69 pool camera and a $1,049 spherical body sit in one table with nothing hidden. What follows is where every number comes from, which two are calculated here, and the things this site will not do.
Where the specifications come from
The manufacturer’s own specification page or manual, first and by preference, with published hands-on coverage filling the gaps where a maker leaves a field blank. Every entry records the URLs it was built from. Units are converted once into one set: square millimetres for sensor area, metres for depth, minutes for runtime, grams for weight, megabits per second for bitrate. That is what lets a GoPro and an AKASO share a row without footnotes. Where a maker publishes nothing, the row says “not published” rather than guessing — and a surprising number of rows say that, particularly in the budget tier.
The two numbers we calculate
Sensor area. Makers print an optical format — “1/1.3-inch” — that is a legacy of video camera tubes and describes nothing useful. We convert it through the standard optical-format table into square millimetres, which is the number that actually predicts low-light performance. For a 360 camera it is the area of one lens’s sensor, because that is what decides the noise in a reframed shot.
Reframed resolution. A 360 camera spreads its resolution across a full circle, so a normal 16:9 clip pulled out of it uses only the slice its field of view covers. We compute the usable width at an 80-degree reframe and label it an estimate, because stitching and supersampling move it a few per cent.
Both are labelled as derived wherever they appear, and the specs page shows the table and the arithmetic so either can be checked.
Why no camera shows a star rating
Stars only appear where a named retailer or a maker’s own store publishes an owner-review average we can point at, and where that source is not Amazon — republishing Amazon’s ratings is not something this site does. Today 0 of the 42 cameras clear that bar, so the rest simply have no stars and the listing sorts on sensor area instead. No score is ever estimated: an uncited number would be a claim about real customers that nobody could check.
Where the owner notes come from
From people who own the camera: public owner discussion archives, retailer reviews, and published long-term tests. Those notes exist for 27 of the 42 cameras here — the ones with enough real discussion to summarise honestly.
The other 15 say so. A camera whose owners nobody here has read is marked as written from the specification sheet, its page says that plainly, and its owner section prints a line explaining the gap rather than sitting blank. 15 entries carry that mark. Nothing on this site says “owners report” about a camera whose owners nobody here has read.
Battery figures, and why so few have a tested number
Every runtime claim is printed next to the exact setting the maker measured it at, because a number without its setting is marketing. Where a named outlet has run its own test we print that too, with its conditions and its source — currently 4 cameras, all from one group test where four cameras recorded simultaneously until they shut down. That is a small number because a same-setting comparative test is rare. Four real figures are worth more here than forty estimated ones.
What every camera’s sheet records
- Sensor size and areathe maker's optical format, plus the area in mm² derived from the standard table
- Max resolution and frame ratesthe ceiling, and the separate ceilings at 4K and 1080p
- Reframed resolution360 cameras only — what a normal 16:9 clip is actually worth
- Bitrate, colour depth, loghow much detail survives compression, and how far it grades
- Stabilisation and horizon lockthe maker's name and version, and whether the lock is full or lean-only
- Waterproof depthbare first, cased second, because only the bare figure is about the camera
- Runtime and its settingnever one without the other, plus any cited third-party test
- Cold ratinglowest published operating temperature
- Weight, dimensions, screens, mountthe physical facts that decide where it can go
- Storage, GPS, voice control, lensesthe yes/no answers people ask about after shortlisting
- Subscription and year-one costwhat a plan gates, and what that makes the first year cost
How lists are ordered
The listing opens sorted by sensor area, because that is an objective spec and nothing here carries a citable rating to sort on. Every guide states its basis at the top of the page — “ranked by derived sensor area under $300”, “ranked by the maker’s claimed runtime with the setting shown” — and the order is arithmetic you can check against the table underneath it. Nobody here picked a winner.
In comparison tables a cell is highlighted only where one direction is unambiguously better and one camera is outright ahead. Weight, field of view and battery capacity are left neutral on purpose, because the better direction depends on what you are shooting and pretending otherwise would be inventing an opinion and calling it data.
What we never do
No retailer links of any kind, no affiliate tags, no commission on anything. No paid placement and no pay-to-rank. No invented ratings and no invented owners. No counts of discussions we did not count. No claim that anyone here tested a camera, because nobody did. If any of that ever changes, this page changes first.
Product photos, where they exist, are the manufacturer’s own press images, self-hosted. 42 of 42 cameras currently have one; the rest show a plain panel with the brand and model rather than a stand-in image.
Update cadence
New models, discontinued ones, firmware that changes what a camera can do, and price moves get folded in as they happen rather than on a schedule. This category moves fast enough that 4 of the cameras in the catalogue launched this year. Last updated September 2026. 18 of the 42 cameras have a subscription that gates something, which is checked at the same time as pricing.
Check the work
Put any two cameras side by side and see whether the sheet holds up.
Browse all 42 cameras