Cameras

GoPro Hero 10 Black Review: Action Camera & Bundle

Item: GoPro Hero 10 Black
Rating: 4.2
Author: Subham Mehta

Subham Mehta

September 28, 2021

381

Credit: TechRadar

Verdict

The GoPro Hero 10 Black isn’t a revolutionary action camera, but it is a lot more user-friendly and polished version of its predecessor, as well as the most flexible action camera available. The additional slow-motion frame rates and wired data transmission modes are helpful, plus the snappier UI and minor image quality enhancements make it a fun waterproof companion for excursions and b-roll film. However, its competitors now offer bigger sensors and greater value.

Pros

Menus and user interface are more responsive
The GP2 processor is a powerful CPU
The new 4K/120p mode is entertaining
The stabilization that is best in class
Water-repellent lens cover
The wired transmission mode is faster

Cons

Identical tiny sensor
Still no king of low-light photography
Budget competitors are more cost-effective

The GoPro Hero 10 Black is the newest addition to a lengthy series of Hero action cameras that began in 2005. Thanks to its new GP2 processor, it’s the most polished and powerful GoPro ever, but it’s still only a slight advance over its Hero 9 Black predecessor.

The GoPro camera makes significant advancements now and then: the Hero 5 Black was waterproof without the need for a case, and the Hero 7 Black featured HyperSmooth stabilization. The Hero 10 Black, despite its memorable name, isn’t one of those models. However, it refines most of the new capabilities we saw on the Hero 9 Black, while also introducing a few new shooting modes and improved usability.

The GoPro Hero 10 Black uses the same 23MP 1/2.3-inch sensor as its model and is waterproof to a depth of 10 meters, but the new GP2 CPU unlocks the majority of the camera’s extra features. New shooting modes, including 5K/60p, 4K/120p, and 2.7K/240p, are among the highlights. The last two are entertaining, slow-mo events that are ideal for social media cut-scenes or b-cam video, especially because GoPro’s redesigned Quik software will gladly assist with some of the editings.

A far more snappy touchscreen interface, a convenient new wired data transfer mode for phones, and some under-the-hood image quality improvements, such as local tone mapping and better low-light noise reduction, are among the other enhancements. Although there are some minor gains in video quality as a consequence, the Hero 10 Black’s very tiny image sensor can only do so much.

For most consumers, the fact that HyperSmooth 4.0 is still the greatest action camera video stabilization technology available will be more important, watersports lovers will like the excellent new hydrophobic coating on its toughened-up lens cover.

While GoPro’s recent improvements into webcams are impressive, it’s a shame the GoPro Hero 10 Black doesn’t feature a larger sensor like the Insta360 One R 1-Inch model, and livestreaming have limits on resolutions and platform compatibility, the company’s recent moves into a webcam and livestreaming have not.

Despite its modest improvements, the GoPro Hero 10 Black refines the image-quality gains made by the GoPro Hero 9 Black, It’s also the most user-friendly and powerful action camera on the market – if not the greatest value.

Credit: Hypebeast

Compare Specifications, Price, and Release Date of GoPro Hero 10 Black

	GoPro Max	Hero10 Black	Hero9 Black	Hero8 Black
Price	$399	$399	$349	@279
Video Resolution	5.6K, 60 fps (spherical), 1080p/60fps (rectilinear)	5K/60 fps	5K/30 fps	4K, 60 fps
Photo Resolution	16.6MP (spherical), 5.5MP (rectilinear)	23MP	20MP	12MP
Display	Rear only	Front and rear	Front and rear	Front and rear
Slo-Mo	2X	240 fps (2.7k)	240 fps (1080p)	240 fps (1080p)
Livestreaming	Yes (1080p)	Yes (1080p)	Yes (1080p)	Yes (1080p)
HDR	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Motion Stabilization	Max Hypersmooth	HyperSmooth 4.0	HyperSmooth 3.0+ Boost	HyperSmooth 2.0+ Boost
Microphones	6	3	3	2
Water Resistance	16 feet	33 feet	16 feet	16 feet
Battery	1600 mAh	1720 mAh	1720 mAh	1220 mAh
Size	2.7 x 2.5 x 0.98 inches	2.75 x 1.9 x 1.6 inches	2.75 x 1.9 x 1.6 inches	2.5 x 1. x 1.1 inches
Weight	154 grams	150 grams	158 grams	126 grams

If you join up for a GoPro Subscription, you can get the GoPro Hero 10 Black for $399 / £379 / AU$599.95, or $499 / £479 / AU$749.95 on its own. From early November, it will be available in India for Rs 54,500.

When you are buying individually, the GoPro Subscription, formerly known as GoPro Plus, costs $49.99 / £49.99 / AU$69.99 per year, and if you buy the Hero 10 Black with a subscription, you’ll be set up to auto-renew yearly, however you may avoid this by cancelling the subscription at any point during the first year.

It’s probably the best method for most people to acquire the Hero 10 Black because you’re not compelled to renew the subscription. Unlimited cloud storage for movies and images in full resolution, automated uploads, complete access to the Quik app’s editing capabilities, 50% off all accessories, live-streaming support, and replacements for broken cameras are all included with the GoPro Subscription.

GoPro will keep selling its existing camera models at their present pricing, with no models being phased out. The Hero 9 Black ($349 / £329 / AU$529), as well as the Hero 8 Black ($279 / £259 / AU$419) and GoPro Max ($399 / £379 / AU$659), are all included. All of that pricing includes a GoPro membership, but you can get them without one as well.

Design

Credit: The Teal Mango

The physical appearance of the GoPro Hero 10 Black is nearly comparable to that of its predecessor. The new model’s beautiful blue branding on the front and side are the only exterior difference from the Hero 9 Black.

However, GoPro has made a few minor changes, the most notable of which is the redesigned lens cover, which is especially important for watersports enthusiasts. We ran the Hero 10 Black and its predecessor underwater, and the redesigned lens cover proved considerably better at repelling water, leaving no droplets to obstruct your view.

Although our head-mounted GoPro flew off after a hard zip-line landing and landed in some sharp wood chips, there were no obvious damages on the lens, this lens cover also appears to have higher scratch resistance, which was tougher to test on our loan sample. This lens cover, like the Hero 9 Black, is detachable and replaced if it sustains significant damage, such as a direct hit from an Airsoft pellet, or if you wish to install ND filters.

Credit: Adorama

Although we can’t identify exactly where GoPro saved weight, the Hero 10 Black is around 5g lighter than its predecessor, and it offers no practical improvements. The camera’s base, like before, features foldable ‘fingers’ allowing mounting it directly to accessories. These were originally seen on the Hero 8 Black, and they eliminate the need for additional housing to secure the camera to your helmet.

If you’ve never seen the Hero 9 Black, here’s a short rundown of the other design elements that the Hero 10 Black has inherited. For vloggers, there’s a 1.4-inch front LCD that, according to GoPro, is now a touch smoother when showing movement than before, thanks to the GP2 processor’s faster frame rates. Even though this screen is so tiny, we couldn’t detect the difference between it and its predecessor.

The enhanced 2.27-inch back touchscreen is far more apparent. GoPro claims that this has “enhanced touch sensitivity,” but the actual difference is the GP2 processor’s power. One of our major complaints about the Hero 9 Black was its slow, unresponsive rear screen, which, while it improved with a recent firmware update, is still nowhere near as responsive as the Hero 10’s touchscreen.

To be fair, this is exactly how the Hero 9 Black should have performed from the start, so it’s hardly a victory for its replacement. But, compared to last year’s frequently unpleasant experience, the quicker startup speeds and smartphone-like snappiness make it considerably more fun to use.

When you open the side door of the Hero 10 Black, you’ll discover the same 1,720mAh battery as its predecessor. This, like the 1.4-inch front LCD, was introduced on the Hero 9 Black, so it’s something to keep in mind if you’re moving from an earlier GoPro — your older 1,220mAh batteries won’t work.

A microSD card slot and a USB-C port flank the battery cover. The latter is intended for charging, but it can also be used to connect transmit footage straight to your Hero 10 Black. While Android phones just require a USB-C to USB-C connection, iPhone users will require the Apple Lightning-to-USB camera converter as well as a regular USB-A to USB-C cable.

Overall, the Hero 10 Black is a tough pocket camera that’s waterproof to a depth of 10 meters and seems a touch more refined than its predecessor.

Features of Camera

Credit: Digital Photography Review

The GoPro Hero 9 Black debuted a new picture sensor last year. It featured the same sensor size as previous GoPros (1/2.3-inch), but it had a greater resolution, allowing it to be the first GoPro to record 5K footage. The Hero 10 Black features the same image sensor as the Hero 10, but it’s paired with a new GP2 CPU that enables certain additional abilities.

The GoPro GP2 processor is the first major processing improvement in four years, and it’s long needed. The GP1 struggled to keep up with the additional demands imposed by the Hero 9 Black’s dual displays and higher-resolution sensor, and its replacement is responsible for almost all of the Hero 10’s advancements.

What exactly are these enhancements? Along with the previously stated improvements to start-up speeds and touchscreen performance, new frame-rate options make it a more flexible action camera. The new modes are summarised in the table below, but the slow-motion choices, which include a long-awaited 4K/120p mode, are particularly entertaining.

The high frame-rate options are the most noticeable video upgrades, but there are a few others as well. GoPro has been fiddling with algorithms, and its GP2 chip extends local tone-mapping, and HDR processing approach for boosting dynamic range, from photo mode to video mode.

This, in principle, increases the contrast in certain regions of the video, allowing for more intricate textures to be seen. In a similar line, GoPro claims to have enhanced its’3D noise reduction to improve the Hero 10 Black’s low-light performance in poorly lit settings.

Do they work? We saw a considerable increase in the clarity of small details on the Hero 10 Black in a side-by-side comparison with the Hero 9 Black using the same settings. When compared to the footage from its predecessor, it appeared a touch smudgy. However, this may be apparent mainly to pixel-peepers, and the noise reduction improvements were less noticeable. It’s a little distinction rather than a significant one.

Performance

While the GP2 processor on the Hero 10 Black makes it a more polished and enjoyable camera to operate than its predecessor, several elements of its performance remain characteristic of GoPro.

Unfortunately, one of these concerns battery life and overheating. The 10 Black uses the same battery as the Hero 9 Black, which is bigger than all prior GoPro batteries at 1,720mAh. However, the Hero 10 Black’s more demanding dual displays and high frame-rate settings deplete most of that capacity.

In our battery test, the Hero 10 lasted 72 minutes while filming a continuous 4K/30p clip with Hyper Smooth enabled and the screen brightness set to 50%. This included two interruptions for overheating when the camera shut down under the pressure.

This is a bit less than the Hero 9 Black, but similar to the Hero 8 Black, proving that the old GoPro adage about carrying a backup battery or two is accurate. In a real scenario, our fully charged Hero 10 Black lasted three and a half hours before dying during a trip to an adventure park. That was a rigorous afternoon for the camera, with plenty of menus swiping and frame rate switching, but that’s a normal GoPro day out.

Audio, another long-standing GoPro flaw, hasn’t improved since the Hero 9 Black. In calmer situations, the microphones offer adequate sound quality, and speech isolation and wind noise management are far superior to earlier GoPros. However, if you want to ensure that your audio matches the quality of your video, we recommend buying the Media Mod attachment and either putting in a lavalier mic or choosing a wireless alternative like the Rode Wireless Go II.

On the bright side, Hero 10 Black’s new slow-mo settings are a lot of fun and a wonderful way to give your social media videos a change of pace. When filming in these settings, the quality drops noticeably, especially if you’re not in direct sunlight, but the versatility these modes provide, especially when paired with horizon-leveling and HyperSmooth stabilization, makes them one of the major reasons to upgrade from an earlier GoPro.

Video and Image Quality: GoPro Hero 10 Black Review

Credit: Firstpost

The default video settings on the Hero 10 Black have been changed by GoPro. The action camera manufacturer appears to have outgrown its characteristic saturated aesthetic, opting instead for a more natural image right out of the box.

There are now three different color options to select from. Previously, you could choose between a ‘GoPro’ color profile and a ‘flat’ color profile that you could grade later. However, there is now an extra ‘Natural’ profile, which is the new default, and we love it.

GoPro’s’sharpness’ is set to medium by default, but we like to shoot with it set to ‘low’ and the bit-rate set to ‘high’ for the best image quality. Compared to footage recorded with the same settings on the Hero 9 Black, the results were identical, but with minor improvements because of the improved local tone mapping.

With the new sensor, the Hero 9 Black has already made significant improvements in areas like detail over earlier GoPros, and you’re unlikely to detect a significant change here unless you’re very pixel-peeping. Its 5K/60p option is good to have, albeit not ideal for action sequences owing to the limited stabilization, but it’s the new slow-mo settings that are the most entertaining.

The Hero 10’s slower frame rates of 120p and 240p give the footage a softness, but the ability to shoot 4K/120p and 2.7K/240p elevate them from novelty status to something really useable. GoPro’s HyperSmooth is still the best on an action camera, and the improvements to horizon leveling are a nice touch.

GoPro’s HyperSmooth is still the best on an action camera, and the improvements to horizon leveling are a nice touch.

The results are clear and vivid in excellent light, and SuperPhoto can help you recover some highlight elements from places like the sky. However, most people won’t notice the Hero 9 Black’s 3MP resolution improvement, and in difficult scenarios – especially low-light scenes – it just can’t match with Apple, Google, and Samsung’s processing pipelines.

You can shoot in raw, but it’s only accessible in the ‘wide’ fisheye perspective, and shadow recovery with a 1/2.3-inch sensor is restricted.

Accepting the sub-smartphone quality and embracing the ease of ‘frame grabs,’ which now allow you to capture somewhat enhanced 15.8MP stills from 5.3K video, maybe the more reasonable approach to GoPro snapping. The images you obtain from doing this are unlikely to be found in your phone’s camera roll, and one of the major reasons to buy a GoPro is its capacity to travel into risky areas.

HyperSmooth 4.0

Credit: newsdirectory3.com

GoPros did not have inbuilt stabilization in the past. It meant that handheld film had to be shot with extraordinary caution, with every twitch, pothole, and wobble being meticulously captured. That was acceptable for some activities, but it frequently resulted in useless video or a post-production stint to attempt to salvage things.

We’ve lived in a lighter, brighter world since the Hero 7, where HyperSmooth would work its magic and make even the most jarring pursuit seem sleek and smooth on film without the need for a costly, delicate gimbal. We’re on the fourth iteration of GoPro’s inbuilt stabilization with the Hero 10, and it’s still doing miracles.

The enhanced strength of horizon leveling is maybe the most noticeable difference here. It used to keep videos “flat” to the skyline up to a 27-degree angle. The video would then be slightly tilted to match the angle of the camera. You may now hit a 45-degree bend or ride a corner and your video will remain stubbornly locked to the horizon.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. With mounts, selfie sticks, or anything else that can easily move off-level while being held, I like to use horizon leveling. While affixed to handlebars, for example, you could use it, but any tight bends or dramatic leans would be cleanly smoothed out. You’ll get a smooth video, but the motion dynamic will be lost a bit. However, you can divorce horizon leveling from HyperSmooth directly on the camera’s home screen, making it available whenever you need it.

Front Screen

Credit: Newegg

The Hero 9 introduced a front screen for framing yourself while gazing at the camera for the first time. DJI was first to market with one on its Osmo Action, weeks ahead of GoPro. Nonetheless, it’s become a standard feature, and as such, is subject to updates.

The GoPro Hero 10 Black is the same size as last year’s, but with a little frame rate increase from 20 to 30 frames per second. It’s good to see the business upgrading all elements of the camera, but I don’t see much of a change, at least not at arm’s length, which is where I need the second display the most. In any case, if you felt the screen to be deficient in this respect, be assured that you will have a better experience next time.

It’s not so much a front-screen feature as it is a front-screen feature, so now is the time to discuss it: The lens on the Hero 10 now has a “hydrophobic” coating. Drops on the lens are the easiest way to destroy your film if you’ve ever put a GoPro into the water. They usually sit right in the middle of the action as well.

I haven’t had the opportunity to put this camera through the whole water test yet, but just getting it wet shows that water doesn’t collect in the big, subject-blurring drops like it used to. It’s not completely water resistant, but large drops are no longer an issue; instead, you’ll receive a collection of tiny droplets. Although these are still unpleasant, they appear to have less of an influence on what you’re shooting, so I’ll accept them.

Faster Navigation: GoPro Hero 10 Black Review

The user interface has also been enhanced, as has menu navigation. According to GoPro, the touch screen is now more responsive, and most functions should be completed faster. Certainly, this appears to be the case. A push on an older camera may require two attempts to register, but with the Hero 10, I had significantly fewer situations when I needed to tap more than once.

The length of time it takes to process an HDR shot is an even clearer illustration of the software side of things getting faster. While the exposure is immediate, GoPro users will recognize the swirling circles that appear after a picture is captured while the camera develops the image. It doesn’t take long, generally a handful of seconds, but the Hero 10 cuts that time in half. The newest flagship undoubtedly seems a little breezier to operate, thanks to that and the general nippiness of the menus.

Another tiny usability improvement that doesn’t belong here but improves the user experience is that the Hero 10 now supports wired transfer through a phone. That is, you may transmit your media to Quick by simply connecting the camera to your smartphone.

Battery Life

Now far, everything has gone well, so it’s time to throw a wrench into the works. GoPro’s battery life has never been a strong point, though it has improved over time. Unfortunately, the Hero 10 feels like a step backward. It’s not game-changing, but the Hero 9 outlasted the Hero 10 by over half an hour in a straight “click record and leave the camera” shootout, coming in at 1hr40 at 4K/30fps. When I repeated the test with the new camera, it only lasted 1hr15 minutes.

According to GoPro, most users only record short movies, therefore the camera has been designed for that use case. That may be accurate, but it’s safe to assume that nothing has changed since the last camera. And, regardless of your shooting habits, the physics of faster processing will always reduce the amount of time you spend shooting.

When you start experimenting with those new higher frame rates, things get much worse. On my first day of testing, I suspected I had a bad cell because it dropped to around 50% battery capacity abnormally rapidly. It wasn’t until later that I realized that this is just the cost of smoother videos.

There isn’t much else to say here, as this is to be expected: You’re asking a similar-capacity battery to do a lot more work. Let’s hope that future versions and perhaps even software upgrades will be able to reclaim some of those valuable minutes.