Gadgetory

go pro always had an assortment of action cameras on the market from the entry-level to what the pros use at the events and video sessions of course today I want to take a look at their most budget-friendly model and truly see if the performance and image quality is compromised if anything the videos I see at the sporting goods stores always looks phenomenal now I personally bought this it's the GoPro Hero Plus LCD for 299 dollars retail as of this video now as always keep my website in mind Jim's review room comm for news reviews and other awesome stuff updated daily again I'm Jimmy with Jim's review room calm welcome to another review the hero LCD model looks almost identical to the others but it's very much different the first noticeable change the camera is fixed into its housing you cannot detach it not a big deal at first but it means that the battery is not removable either and if you guys follow my style of reviews I prefer removable batteries as batteries do lose its efficiency over time through recharging cycles and age but more importantly if you're in the middle of nowhere recording a spare battery will be nice to interchange but in this case here carrying a separate power bank would be the most ideal now there's three different back plates provided first is an open back to allow the built-in microphone to capture all that audio and will test the sound out a little bit later there's no waterproof protection on this one but the second plates here is the standard backdoor which provides waterproof protection up to 131 feet or 40 meters of water now the last plate is a touch sensitive plate allowing you to use the touch screen of course but you can also still bring this underwater but this time up to 10 feet or 3 meters and for your information the touch screen does not register your fingers if you're trying to change settings while submerged now each backdoor is held on very securely with the locking latch and overall like any action cam should be it's been very rugged and despite being the budget model still a quality product from my month-long testing and now regarding the connections a microUSB port and cable is provided to try the GoPro in addition plugging this into my computer allowed me to refill the battery but also allowed me to transfer and view files then below that is a micro SD card slot that takes up to 64 gigs of memory now going through the menu options and thank God for the touchscreen this makes everything much easier than using the buttons on the front now on the far right once tab you can select which mode you want to be in either video recording taking photos with the GoPro burst shots and time-lapse now to the left our settings for that mode that you're particularly in in this case it's for video and this can record up to 1080p with 60 frames per second one mode that's not included is a higher frame rate say 120 or 240 frames per second to capture those awesome slow-motion footage if you pay $100 more retail for the hero4 silver that includes the hundred twenty frames per second at 720p resolution while they cream-of-the-crop hero4 black edition does advertised for 240 frames per second but it's only recording at a resolution of 848 by 480 that's less than 720 of course but that's also less than HD video quality so just a heads up on that if slow motion capture is a priority now next up your photos taken from the 8 megapixel sensor right on the GoPro and the GoPro does take wide photos which is a plus if that's something that you need all photos you see here are unedited and right from the camera itself now pause the video if you need to examine the photos or visit my website jim's review room comm for more photos online now overall from my analysis it looks pretty good it's not as sharp as your flagship cell phone or point and shoot camera but it does justice now burst shot mode is 10 shots in succession with just one tap of the button while in photo mode and GoPro advertises its speed to be up to 5 shots per second in a last recording feature here I think that is great for pros and even down to beginners time-lapse is ridiculously easy to use now mount the somewhere stationary and set your interval from a half a second up to every 60 seconds a photo will be taken by the GoPro and then you can piece it all together when you're home now keep in mind this does require some basic editing it's not saved as one huge big movie file but once done you get a video like this that's playing but before getting into the meat of the video here here's the other mouth that you get a mounting buckle that connects to other accessories and don't lose the heads a flat adhesive and one curved adhesive mount and the adhesive does work great once it's on its surface it sticks very well and the accessories is where it does get you the long run as one official GoPro mount is quite expensive for just some plastic but I did buy an off-brand kit for only $15 and it comes with a bunch of mounts here and I'll put the link in the video description if you guys want to check it out now for the most part they do work but some accessories do fit too snug and others kind of fit to knots in hugged enough to keep the camera stationary but for the pieces that do work it's worth it I think considering one accessory from GoPro again can equal this one entire bag well let's get into the video now keep in mind I am not so much of an action junkie so the videos that you see in stores or videos online or heavily edited and done with multiple cameras so I'm sure my videos won't look anything near as stunning as they do so I would think the video sample plan will be more of an accurate depiction of what you might record yourself I could be wrong but just saying now all video recorded is at 1080p at 60 frames per second and from my analysis the quality looks great here outdoors on bright sunny days and without wide-angle lens it does help with the cap much of your surroundings the colors are not ultra rich but just enough on those sunny days the GoPro does feature auto white balance built-in how many areas the color balance does shift the party so great colors however become more neutral now as an example you can see with this image just 20 seconds apart the color palette changes due to the clouds blocking the Sun and you might see some variations with the other samples I'll be showing soon now as for later in the day here outdoors still looks great just notice that the clouds are a bit blown out a little bit here and the lights in the parking deck are blown out as well with this video I'm using the motor mount that came with the off-brand kit that I bought and surprisingly it did stay on the car now overall the detail the 60 frames per second and certain angles that you get are still unique and impressive for the budget model and now taking this indoors here it's not bad at all surprisingly there is slight pixelation and noise but the image is far from being unusable now you can be the judge on how this looks and if it looks decent to you then you're really good to go now the very last feature I wanted to discuss is the GoPro app now once paired to your phone you can get a live view of what the camera is looking at and surprisingly it's very fluid now I needed this one i mounted the camera on top of my head and granted i have the great LCD screen here i can't see what i'm aiming at until now with this app and while in here I can practically change everything from resolution to the time-lapse settings even seeing how much battery life I have remaining so with everything being said if the performance is good and I really don't have any issues that I can even say or talk about the auto white balance may be the only nuisance and the lack of the exchangeable batteries on the fly but for the entry-level model from GoPro it works out well now if you're satisfied with the image quality there's really no need to jump to the $400 model the only thing I can say the competitors like contour and Sony does offer slightly more features for the same or lower price point as for image quality I do have to test those and see if there is a drastic difference now if you want to stick with GoPro the hero+ LCD works out great in my opinion if you're fine with using a different brand for sure look into them GoPro is clearly not the end-all be-all so hope this review helped you in some way be sure to visit Jin's review room calm daily for new content throughout the week and you can comment there as well on your thoughts or ask questions and if you do like my work show your support by adding me Jim's review room to either Facebook Twitter Instagram or Google+ you can see my personal updates there and also see what I am testing behind the scenes again I'm Jimmy with James review room comm you guys take care and I'll see you the next one