This time round I’m taking a look at the GoPro Hero 6 Black. As a Hero 4 Silver owner, the lack of waterproofing without the dive casing and resulting poor sound quality with the case on had me very intrigued with the Hero 5 & 6 which offered waterproofing straight out of the box, no case needed!
I’m not going to get into the technical details here, head over to Google if you want the low down on sensors, FPS etc. I’m basing this on real world experience, what the Hero 6 is like on the mountain bike, the road bike, my head, the kayak etc.

Straight up the Hero 6 is slightly bigger than the Hero 4 but once you stick that into its waterproof housing, the Hero 6 wins the size battle. This leaves it much less cumbersome to stick into a pocket and means I actually use it far more. There are a number of other great features too like GPS for example enabling you to overlay speed, elevation etc to your videos which is a pretty nice feature although it doesn’t do the battery life any favours!
Speaking of which, if you want to get the most out of any GoPro you’re going to need to invest in few extra batteries. Run-time is somewhere in the region of an hour depending on the settings used. I’ve also gone a step further and picked up the dual battery charger paired with a 15,000mAh USB QuickCharge compatible power bank meaning I can charge batteries on the go and not have to worry about running out.

The Hero 6 has built in stabilization, this is a huge development in comparison to the older generations, Hero 4 and older. Mountain biking and mounted to a helmet, it produces some very smooth footage, it’s not gimbal smooth but it’s pretty close! Any mount on a road bike or kayak and its fantastic! I’ve even run with it and the footage coming out of it is impressive. In comparison the Hero 4 footage is pretty much unwatchable on anything other than buttery smooth road or the kayak.

Would I recommend the GoPro Hero 6, in short yes. Is it worth the €430 price? Well that depends on what you want to get out of it. For me, I use my Hero 6 pretty much most days, my batteries are always charged and ready to go. The footage is captures is fantastic not to mention the quality of the still images it produces. I personally wouldn’t be without it. The waterproofing is a massive plus for me too, you can just get out there and use it regardless of the weather or location and not have to worry about it getting wet.
In saying that though, if all you want to do is capture the odd adventure, a race here and there or family life, the 2018 GoPro Hero could be the way to go. At €220 and with the majority of the functionality, you lose GPS, Protune, Mic input and it has less advanced stabilisation, this could be the more budget friendly option for those looking to try out a GoPro without the Hero 6 overheads. If I manage to get my hands on a 2018 Hero I’ll do a comparison and report back.

Lastly, I’ve yet come across an action camera that can equal the GoPro brand. Obviously I haven’t tried them all but what I have tried have been buggy, sluggish, poor image quality, poor firmware, the list goes on. With GoPro you get what you paid for, it just works! I’m willing to be proven wrong though, if there’s something else I should be looking at please let me know!
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