The Hero9 would appear to be a pretty major upgrade from the Hero8. The Hero8, Hero7 and MAX will still all be available at reduced prices, meaning that the GoPro range offers highly capable action cameras to all budgets.
The addition of 5K will likely draw folks to talk about the numbers game again, but as we have seen, this higher resolution makes better stabilisation possible, as well as improving the quality of the Hero9’s digital lenses, which work by cropping in on the sensor.
Aspects such as the HindSight feature and Scheduled Capture are highly useful in a camera like this, and the MAX Lens Mod gives previously unheard of digital stabilisation to the device in an extremely easy to add on widget. The return of the removable lens cover will undoubtedly go down very well in the action camera community.
Interestingly the Hero9 still uses the GoPro/Socionext developed GP1 chip that debuted in the Hero6. It’s clearly a powerful system. Some of the abilities of the Hero8 over the Hero7 were made possible with increased RAM. This is very likely the case with the Hero9, with the 5K mode necessitating a RAM upgrade by default to deal with the extra resolution, as well as the larger body making thermal dissipation more efficient.
Read full article
