HERO8: Black Beyond Next Level

HERO8 Black

New body design and attachable accessories may attract a whole new crowd to GoPro.

ANOTHER AUTUMN, ANOTHER GoPro. All across the country, the leaves are turning colors and hideous sweaters are emerging from storage. That means it’s an action-cam season, and the new GoPro Hero 8 Black is available for order.

This year the Hero 8 gets a new form factor, with a shorter lens extension and built-in mounting rings. That’s right, you can mount your GoPro on your helmet or handlebars without a cumbersome cage. It’s the first major redesign the Hero has seen in years.

Now that it’s cage-free, GoPro has created a line of accessories called Mods. They attach thanks to a rubberized band that’s wrapped around the camera body. GoPro has three Mods to go along with the launch of the Hero 8—an attachment with more ports (that’s needed to attach the others), a flip-up display, and an LED light—but expect third-party accessory makers to quickly jump on the idea, extending the action camera to new realms.

Breaking Out of the Cage

The Hero 8 is marginally larger than the Hero 7 by itself, but not enough to make it much different in the hand. If you count the 7’s mounting cage, the new Hero 8 is actually smaller. Because, again, it doesn’t need a cage!

The new cage-less mounting design is one of those changes that make you wonder why it wasn’t this way all along. It has folding mount rings on the bottom of the camera that tucks away when you don’t need them. It makes the entire GoPro experience less cumbersome. Changing batteries or memory cards can still be tough. Both of them share space in the new, single side hatch—a tight fit. If you have large hands, you’re going to have a difficult time getting the tiny MicroSD card in and out, but it’s less cumbersome than taking off the cage every time you want to change the battery.

via WIRED

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