GoPro Hero 8 Black Review

Another year, another new GoPro. Arguably the leader in the action camera market, GoPro has been consistently iterating its flagship action cameras, which are marketed as its ‘Black’ models in each generation. The Hero 6 Black and Hero 7 Black offered small, iterative updates over the Hero 5 Black, which debuted the design that we see today. Now, with the Hero 8 Black, GoPro is introducing some major changes to the way we use its action camera. It might not look all that new at first glance, but it packs in some notable and much needed design changes, which vloggers will certainly appreciate.

The company is also streamlining its lineup, so for the Hero 8 series, we have only the Hero 8 Black, and no Silver or White variants. In India, the Hero 8 Black is priced at around Rs. 36,500, which is roughly the same price that previous Black-series GoPros have launched at.

It’s time to check out the new features of the Hero 8 Black and see if this new version is worth buying over the Hero 7 Black.

GoPro Hero 8 Black design

The Hero 8 Black features a familiar button and display layout but with some big tweaks. The camera is actually a tad thicker in width and overall volume than previous models, but the camera lens barely protrudes outwards now, making the device a lot more pocketable. The lens also gets Gorilla Glass scratch protection, and GoPro says it is twice as resilient to scratches than before. We hope this claim is indeed true since the lens on the Hero 8 Black is now fixed and not replaceable, like with older models.

You get the same-sized monochrome display on the front as before, and a colour touchscreen on the back. One of the three microphones has been repositioned to the front of the camera for better audio recording, and the GoPro logo is now embossed on the rubber cladding instead of being printed. The flat sides of the camera have a different design too. There’s no rubber lining anymore; instead there’s now a single water-sealed flap on the right for the battery, microSD card, and USB Type-C port. The Hero 8 Black also loses the Micro-HDMI port which was present on older models.

(Clockwise) The GoPro Hero 8 Black compared to the Hero 7 Black; the battery compartment; the foldable mounting fingers

 

The single flap on the right is very convenient and we were able to access the charging port even with the camera mounted in most cases. The biggest and most overdue design change though is the built-in mounting fingers on the bottom, which fold flush with the body and stay in place magnetically when not in use. This also means that you don’t need the (sometimes) annoying plastic cage any more when you need to use this camera with some accessories. The mounting fingers feel well-built and are backwards compatible with pretty much any existing GoPro mount.

The removable battery has the same capacity as that of the Hero 7 Black but is distinguished by some blue accents on the contact end. There are also two red status LEDs this time instead of…