We knew it was coming, but today GoPro officially released the Hero 6 Black, the company鈥檚 new flagship camera, and聽the previously teased Fusion, their 360-degree camera. The Hero 6 will retail for $499 and goes on sale today, and the Fusion will sell for聽$699 and ships in November.
The specs for the 6 confirm聽what has already been leaked:聽It has the same form factor as the Hero 5, but shoots 4K video at 60 frames-per-second, which improves how smooth your footage looks.聽The 6 will also shoot regular HD 1080p video at 240 frames-per-second (twice聽that of the 5), meaning your powder day footage will look even dreamier when slowed down. The 6, like the 5, is waterproof to 33 feet and has a touch screen and voice control, but its WiFi is three times faster than the 5's. That will make聽it easier to control with the GoPro app聽and improve聽integration with the聽QuikStories聽feature, which automatically cuts together highlight reals.
Nick Woodman,聽GoPro's CEO, also confirmed that the 6 will run on a new processor called the GP1.聽This is聽the first time GoPro has used its own聽custom processor, which is sourced from Japan-based Socionext.聽That processor will help set them apart from other action camera manufacturers聽and allow them to develop custom features. The GP1 should聽improve image quality, low-light performance, dynamic range, and, perhaps most important, make the internal electronic image stabilization significantly better. That's a big deal: stabilization聽has always been the Achilles heel of聽action cams. It鈥檚 what separates all of your favorite ski movies from your buddy鈥檚 vomit-inducing聽鈥渇ilm鈥 on YouTube. GoPro said the 6 will cut down on shakiness by cropping in on the image聽and utilizing聽three-axis electronic聽image聽stabilization. (High-end editing software uses a very similar process.)聽The resulting footage聽should look similar to what you'd get if you strapped an older GoPro聽to their stabilized Karma grip.
It's that improvement that we鈥檙e most excited about聽at 国产吃瓜黑料. (Well, that and the聽ultra-slow-mo 1080p at 240 fps.) The stabilization won鈥檛 replicate what you get from a bigger, more feature-rich video camera harnessed to an external gimbal, but it could make action cam footage much more pleasant to watch. We know the聽iPhone 8聽already shoots the same 240 fps, but action cams like the GoPro, which you can strap to your chest or helmet,聽are better at capturing this kind of slo-mo聽footage, and we can鈥檛 wait to see what users do with it.
That brings us to the聽Fusion. The device, which聽we first heard about back in April, will be a spherical 360-degree camera that shoots 5.2K footage. It benefits from image stabilization as well, and users will be able to聽play the footage back as VR content or use an upcoming聽app聽feature called OverCapture, which will launch in early 2018, to pick an angle and play it back like a normal, fixed-perspective POV video .聽
In addition to the hardware launches, Woodman also announced聽a firmware update to the Karma Drone that gives it 鈥淔ollow鈥 and 鈥淲atch鈥 functions. The first is something that other companies, like DJI, have had since 2015鈥攊t allows the聽drone to automatically follow anyone who has the聽controller. The “Watch” feature enables to the drone to聽hover in place and keep聽the controller聽in the frame, even if the person with the controller is moving.聽
Let's be clear: no individual product or feature launched by GoPro聽today is revolutionary. But taken together, all the hardware and software updates form an impressive package and should help the company continue to聽rebound聽after 2015鈥檚 rocky launch of the Session and last year鈥檚 Karma recall.聽The updates also keep them competitive with other drone and camera companies.聽Garmin聽just released聽a firmware update聽for their Virb 360 that already allows for users to pull normal POV footage from the 360 capture,聽and Sony聽recently announced the , a new action cam that promises great image quality and several pro-level features.
We鈥檙e getting our hands on the Hero 6 this afternoon and will have an in-depth review sometime next week. Stay tuned.