Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsExcellent image quality and stabilization, but some MAJOR camera flaws
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2019
Coming from a Session 5, I was expecting a camera that could do everything the Session used to and more. In some cases that turned out to be true, in other cases I was left disappointed. Certain peculiarities turned out to be down right flabbergasting.
First, the good parts: the video quality on the Hero 7 is excellent. The hyper stabilization feature is amazing, and the hyper-lapse videos coming out of it are stunning. That said, there are so many annoying little things about this camera, that in normal operation (e.g. vacations, hiking, swimming) it's frankly a pain to use.
- The camera takes a very long time to start and shut down, and sometimes holding the power button doesn't do anything. It's super frustrating to want to turn OFF a camera and to not be able to.
- It would be great to be able to start recording with a single shutter button press, like on the Session 5. The Hero 7 has that feature, but it is very finicky. Sometimes pressing once does it, sometimes it doesn't do anything and one has to power on the camera first from the side power button.
- The touch screen is a nice addition coming from the Session 5, but man is it finicky... Don't expect a phone-quality touch screen. The sensitivity is lower, and the camera's response to touch is sometimes surprising -- it's difficult to touch/select certain options on the screen, especially with my male, moderately-fat fingers.
- I was fully expecting to be able to use the Hero 7 underwater, in a pool or in the ocean. The Session 5 excelled at this task and my kids had a blast with it swimming underwater. Imagine my surprise when we realized the Hero7's screen was REACTING TO WATER without us touching it, thinking it was being touched by invisible fingers, and therefore doing all kinds of crazy things: changing the mode, enabling/disabling voice support, messing with the connectivity options, etc., basically all the things that you can do via the touch screen can be messed with randomly by water, which makes the camera's behavior completely unpredictable. After a while I was afraid I would lose videos this way, accidentally, while trying to film in the water. I had to use the "lock screen" feature to completely disable access to the touch screen. Very, very strange.
- The USB/battery bay on the Session 5 was very neat, with a little knob that could be used to pop open the water-sealed door. On the Hero 7, the new mechanism they used is a disaster. Opening the USB door requires one to push in a button/knob, and with that button pressed -- slide the door lengthwise along the body until it opens. This works fine in the beginning, but after filming in ocean water a few times, the door no longer "slides", and it's a real pain in the rear to open. To make matters worse, the outside texture is mildly rubbery but very slippery, so there is not enough grip on the outside to help with the sliding/opening process. It's much, much worse than on the Session, and I wish they didn't change a system that was already working very well.
- The battery life is another disaster. This camera consumes a normal battery just laying around without doing anything else. When in use, expect to run through a full battery in 30 minutes. I disabled voice recognition, I suspect that also consumes additional juice, but even without that the battery life is astonishingly short. I don't know what else to do/disable to improve the battery life more, but I suspect it won't be possible to improve much without a major firmware update. GoPro??
- The camera comes with a black cage-style mount, which is cool but there is no door/mechanism for charging the camera (and accessing the USB-C port) while it's in the cage. That seems like a major oversight. Is the expectation that one takes the camera out of the cage every time it needs to be charged, or every time one wants to transfer files? That's not how I operate, and I suspect most people don't do that either... GoPro, what were you thinking. Design a better cage mount, please. I had to buy an off-brand mount with a better design instead.
- This camera weighs quite a bit more than the Session 5, but that is to be expected, I guess. Not a big problem, but it's to be noted if you plan on using it underwater, or strapped to your body/head.
Overall, I am willing to continue giving this camera a chance because I really like the stabilization and video quality, but I really hope GoPro releases major firmware updates soon to improve on at least some of the issues above that CAN be improved. For other issues (like the ridiculous USB-C door), I am just hoping the folks at GoPro read these reviews and design a better camera next time around.
