I picked up the GoPro helmet camera last year at the Outdoor Retailers Show in Salt Lake City, UT where they were selling them at a discount to attendees for $100. I already own a set of Bullet Cams but I decided to give the GoPro a try. For a hundred bucks...why not? For me at $100 it was like 5 cases of PBR. The standard price tag is also $189.00 so it seemed like a heck of a deal.

First I’d like to say it seemed the people in the booth were substantially more interested in talking amongst themselves than offering answers to my questions. I felt they were only interested in getting the hundred bucks out of my pocket and when I wasn’t sure about a purchase they promptly moved away and ignored me. I’ve also heard a number of people complain about their level of interest when it comes to product questions and defects. (GoPro guys, that was me with the CRC bike bag pictured below.)



This kind of stuff can make it difficult to do an honest review but when doing reviews you judge a piece of gear for what the manufactures claim it can do. So, I'll set aside the snub for this piece. There is also another part that has to do the support you get from the company though. That should also be considered as well because if there are problems how will that work out?

I’ve held off on this review because I wanted to test it in all seasons and see if it really was as waterproof as they claim it is. The unit also has a number of features like being able to take photos. I looked at that as well.

The first thing you’ll likely notice about the GoPro is its size. It’s tiny and when out of the waterproof case it’s so light you can barley tell it’s in your hand. It almost looks like a squirt gun camera you’d get from a cereal box or the back of a comic book but it’s a real camera that takes real 2mb photos and shoots real video in both NTSC and PAL formats. With a 2GB SD card it will hold up to 56 minutes of video and up to 1,400 photos. Unlike my Bullet Cams it doesn’t require a digital video camera for recording the media. It's all in the camera itself which makes it much more portable. There aren’t any cables running into a pack for recording or batteries. It’s entirely self-contained in the unit itself and sealed in a small waterproof case.

The first opportunity I had to test the camera was at the Alta Ski Resort in Utah the day after I got it. The camera performed well but in the cold temperatures the batteries died very fast. I only got two runs per set of batteries. The documentation recommends using lithium batteries. While usually easily available, I couldn't find any lithium batteries the day I went to Alta. When I got back to Minneapolis I did try the Lithium batteries and they performed well in the cold Minnesota temperatures.

Here is some video of my first run with the GoPro camera at Alta. It was snowing that day and quite windy so the footage isn’t that great but it would look that way with any camera. I used one of the mounts and secured it to my ski boot. All video shown here was rendered in the wmv 9.0 format at 1mbs. I pulled the sound out of two of the videos due to reasons I'll soon explain.


First GoPro Helmet Hero test at Alta. (Mounted on right ski boot.)

The second test I wanted to do was verify the claims that it was waterproof to 100 ft. I’ve heard claims like this for waterproof bags, watches and lights. Often times the claims simply don’t prove to be true. Last winter Josh and I set out for one of the deepest lakes in the Minneapolis Metro Area, Lake Calhoun, which has a 99 ft. hole in it. We spent two days out on the ice with an ice auger, maps and a GPS unit in an attempt to find this 99 ft. hole. The deepest spot we found was around 78 ft. but in this search we found that the claim of lithium batteries lasting longer to be true. They lasted longer than both the kite boarders and us on the cold lake.

Here is some interesting video from that expedition. We tied a few bricks together and gorilla taped a bike light to the set up. Then we sent the camera down through the ice on an old retired climbing rope with the bricks and light. The end result was frostbite, hypothermia and a completely dry camera at 78 ft. We are completely committed to testing this claim of 100 feet. We'll be doing that in the mine lakes up near Brainerd, MN this winter. We need better lights though. If someone wants to send us a set to test we'll do it and review them. We’re actually going to see when the waterproof case fails so the lights should be able to go to 200 ft or more.


Waterproof tested to 78ft. in the winter.

Finally I wanted to test it out on the bike and test the photo capabilities. I tried two things. I attached it to the bike frame and used the helmet mount. The camera seemed to do fairly well in both situations. For the photo part the functions did hold up to the claims but the low resolution of the photos are something less than desirable. Right now there are cell phones that take better photos however you can't set those on a timer to shoot at 2 second intervals. This kind of feature could potentially make some entertaining stop motion videos.


GoPro Helmet Hero first bike test. (Gorilla taped to Crosscheck frame)

Overall the camera did live up to the claims in the documentation but there are a few things that make this camera less than “Pro”. The first is the resolution for the photos. I already mentioned that. The second is the video output. When using the cable provided the upload from the camera to my PC was very slow. I took the SD card out of the GoPro and downloaded the video through my digital SLR at three times the speed. The files are also in an AVI format but the sound didn’t play in Windows Media Player. I had use the QuickTime player to get sound. QuickTime is a heavy, slow form of delivering media. Many people don’t particularly care to use it. Presumably people will be using some kind of editing software prior to delivering it to the web but it should play sound in a standard player like Windows Media Player. Also speaking of sound, the quality is horrible. Assuming that people are using this product for outdoor adventure sports one would think there would be something to reduce wind noise. It doesn’t seem to have that because the sound is horrible. It's also in a plastic case so that may have something to do with it. To be honest though, I'm not going to expect much in the way of sound from a helmet camera. Most often people are going to use this to make action sports videos and they'll likely lay down music tracks and use voice overs with the footage.

Overall for the $100 I spent on it I’d say its worth it and I like that the case really is waterproof. Even the MSRP at $189 seems very reasonable for what it delivers and the ease in which it's done. Still I think some improvements could be made and GoPro probably needs to work on its PR and relationships. One of the claims I heard from a few people was the inability got in touch with them. I can’t verify this but if they are true try to answer the phone and respond to emails if you could.

I’d like to see this product 5 years down the road and where it goes. I think it could develop into something much better and compete with some products that cost four times more than the GoPro. For now I’ll call it Semi-Pro and say its certainly worth the current price for what it delivers.