byGoPro
Price:$232.49+Free shipping with Amazon Prime
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GoPro HERO3: White Edition - (197'/ 60m Waterproof Housing)
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Customer Reviews
- GoPro HERO3: White Edition - (197'/ 60m Waterproof Housing)
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- Customer Reviews
Most helpful positive review
107 of 133 people found the following review helpful
4awsome camera but could use some chargers ...
ByAn Engineer "Happy Shopping!"on November 6, 2012
The camera is impressive. I see they are trying to improve their product line but lets be honest, they already have a great product line. So what can you do to make it better?
The remote is a great idea. The problem is its another thing we have to keep charged and it has a funny charge connector so good luck finding chargers. I would rather they have a wired remote but I do realize for head mounts it is not convenient to have a wire attached to the camera. I have found that the remote is nice but it has an odd charging port, would rather it had the same charge connector as the camera. The option of an App viewfinder has been nice to aim the camera and the reception has been impressive. Meaning I can be 30 feet from the camera and still have a video stream.
Which brings up a point, note that the camera does not include a wall charger or car charger so I suggest buying them when you buy the Hero
I see they updated the lens but for those of you who are not looking for an upgrade, rather just looking to buy a camera then rest assured they learned from previous versions and improved this one. This means this camera is a little ahead of the rest.
I am still playing with the camera so if I find anything interesting I will add it to this review.
Happy Shopping!
The remote is a great idea. The problem is its another thing we have to keep charged and it has a funny charge connector so good luck finding chargers. I would rather they have a wired remote but I do realize for head mounts it is not convenient to have a wire attached to the camera. I have found that the remote is nice but it has an odd charging port, would rather it had the same charge connector as the camera. The option of an App viewfinder has been nice to aim the camera and the reception has been impressive. Meaning I can be 30 feet from the camera and still have a video stream.
Which brings up a point, note that the camera does not include a wall charger or car charger so I suggest buying them when you buy the Hero
I see they updated the lens but for those of you who are not looking for an upgrade, rather just looking to buy a camera then rest assured they learned from previous versions and improved this one. This means this camera is a little ahead of the rest.
I am still playing with the camera so if I find anything interesting I will add it to this review.
Happy Shopping!
Most helpful critical review
85 of 94 people found the following review helpful
2buggy and unstable firmware (even after update)
ByThomas O'Neillon January 19, 2013
I really want to like the GoPro Hero3 because it has so much potential, but unfortunately like everyone is reporting, the firmware is incredibly buggy (even after updating to the latest firmware, released 15 Dec 2012). On the company's fb page they have a post from 15 Jan 2013 saying they believe all of the bugs have been fixed with this update, but I assure you that they have not been fixed. Maybe they have neglected the white edition in fixing the bugs, because most reviewers on the internet are usually talking about their flagship black edition. Regardless, my white Hero3 intermittently freezes, turns itself off while recording and skips/corrupts videos. I like everything about the camera except that it only works occasionally. You can't trust it if you are trying to capture something cool...if the camera fails, that really defeats the purpose of a rugged, go anywhere do anything, always recording camera. I really hope GoPro is working on a firmware update because there are plenty of competitors out there that could take the market from them if they don't get this straightened out.
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85 of 94 people found the following review helpful
ByThomas O'Neillon January 19, 2013
I really want to like the GoPro Hero3 because it has so much potential, but unfortunately like everyone is reporting, the firmware is incredibly buggy (even after updating to the latest firmware, released 15 Dec 2012). On the company's fb page they have a post from 15 Jan 2013 saying they believe all of the bugs have been fixed with this update, but I assure you that they have not been fixed. Maybe they have neglected the white edition in fixing the bugs, because most reviewers on the internet are usually talking about their flagship black edition. Regardless, my white Hero3 intermittently freezes, turns itself off while recording and skips/corrupts videos. I like everything about the camera except that it only works occasionally. You can't trust it if you are trying to capture something cool...if the camera fails, that really defeats the purpose of a rugged, go anywhere do anything, always recording camera. I really hope GoPro is working on a firmware update because there are plenty of competitors out there that could take the market from them if they don't get this straightened out.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
ByDHon March 3, 2013
Edit: apparently the same review is tagged to both the Hero 3 White and Black, which makes no sense since they are entirely different, but I guess I'm going to have to edit this to cover both cameras. Here goes:
I'm a current Hero 2 HD owner. I ordered a Hero 3 Black and Hero 3 White from GoPro themselves. I ordered a Wifi bacpac for my Hero 2, two Battery BacPac's for Hero 3 and a second Hero 3 Black from Amazon. I wanted all my cameras to be remotely controllable. I bought the two black editions for the supposed better low light performance, and the White to complement my Hero 2 where I just wanted more cameras and light wasn't a concern.
The pairing process to hook all the devices to the remote was easy enough but it went downhill from there. I'm editing this to bundle the product reviews together to identify differences. Here are problems I specifically encountered with the White Edition and wifi capabilities:
1) The wifi is supposed to remain active all the time once you turn it on. Yes this will ultimately drain your battery but that's for you to worry about on your own by choosing when to turn the wifi feature on. This did work correctly for me on the Hero 3 Blacks and my Hero 2 with Wifi BacPac. By remaining active, you can turn the camera on and off using the remote and start/stop recording via the remote. At some unknown interval, the White Edition camera would simply turn the wifi off on its own. I didn't spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly when that occured but it was often less than six hours.
This means if you want to have the cameras sitting around active, you need to regularly turn the camera back on and re-pair it with the remote. You can't just re-enable wifi on the Hero 3 (any of them) because the menu won't let you; the process of turning it on from an off status forces you to choose to pair with a remote and then choose to pair with either the current remote or a new remote. You then have to turn the remote on in pairing mode to complete the process. It would be a lot less annoying if you could simply turn wifi back on but you can't without going through the whole process. Fortunately the remote does not lose its pairing with the other units.
The Hero 2 HD + Wifi BacPac and the Hero 3 Black do not exhibit this issue. They will keep their wifi active until you turn it off or the battery dies.
2) If you manipulate the controls on the White Edition camera manually after you have turned wifi on, wifi will turn off. So, once paired and working via remote, if you decide to record something by starting the camera using its controls, wifi will turn off and you'll have to go through the whole pairing process again. The Hero 2 doesn't care, and most of the time the Black Edition didn't care either.
Both of these above issues with the White Edition have been confirmed as known issues by "Steve D" in GoPro support. They claim at some point a firmware update will be released to fix it. I'm not holding my breath on that because they've been having wifi bugs for many months now from what I've read.
My other notes that apply to all models:
1) Battery life is pretty poor if you're 'upgrading' from a Hero 2 HD. The White Edition has a battery life of a few minute more than an hour while continuous recording at 1080p / 30fps, so nearly half what the Hero 2 HD has. The Black Edition is ever so slightly less than the White.
2) The white edition is actually a bit of a downgrade in image quality and features from the Hero 2 HD; for example, you can't control the field of view at the two highest resolutions like you can on the Hero 2 HD. The quality is not quite as good either.
The Hero 3 Black Edition does let you control the field of view even at the very high resolutions. You may lose 'narrow' in some cases but you still retain wide and medium. Some options come and go depending on whether you enable ProTune mode or not.
3) The firmware upgrade process doesn't use the Cineform program like Hero 2 uses; you have to use a java-based updater via the GoPro website and I could not get it to work. I had to do their manual upgrade procedure instead which means typing in a bunch of information including the camera's serial number which is conveniently hidden under the battery, giving your camera a name and then they generate an updater tied to that specific camera serial which you place on the SD memory card, power the camera off and on and it will update itself. This is quite annoying since if you have multiple cameras to update, you have to type all the info in and get a new download for each one.
4) The USB and HDMI ports are covered by a removable door that is not attached to the camera, so prepare to lose it.
5) The White Edition does not include the same attachment brackets the Black Edition includes in the box. You lose the three axis arm and an additional snap in bracket.
6) I could never get the GoPro Preview App for Android to actually display an image on my phone for Black or White editions. I believe it only works at certain resolutions and 1080p is not one of them. You also have to communicate with it by having your phone connect to the camera using wifi, so your phone is going to lose internet access while controlling the GoPro. I was able to use the phone to stop and start recording but that was it; so between that and losing internet, the app is not particularly useful. The WiFi app can ONLY talk to one camera at a time, it is not like the remote that can stop and start many cameras.
7) On the White Edition, the micro-HDMI port doesn't actually work; I'm sure they'll be fixing that in a future firmware update. It does work fine on the Black Edition and the mini-HDMI on the Hero 2 HD works fine as well.
8) The wifi will randomly disassociate from the remote control on both models of Hero 3, in addition to the turning off issue it has on the White Edition. The White Edition was more susceptible to this issue but I did have it happen once on the Black and the only way I found to get it to pair again was to flash the firmware again; just trying the normal pairing process failed.
9) Of the three Hero 3's I purchased, I shot, or attempted to shoot, several hours of footage per day for five days. By the end of the second day, one of the Black Edition cameras would no longer power on at all. I swapped its battery to confirm that was not the issue. I tried the factory reset procedure I found on youtube, no luck. This unit is effectively dead. On day three, the second Black Edition would no longer function on its internal battery, however, it would still work fine using an attached Battery BacPac, so my recording time was halved but it at least remained working. The White edition continued to function this whole time, it just had the wifi issues and picture quality was not so great. The Hero 2 HD keeps chugging along for what's been years now; it almost feels like it came from a different company these Hero 3's are so poor.
Anyway, all three Hero 3's are on their way back; I simply couldn't deal with the problems and worried they would continue until the warranty was up and then I'd have no options.
My summary is basically that the White Edition is a waste of money because of the reduced picture quality (compared to Hero 2 HD and Hero 3 Black Edition), and especially if you intend to use the currently broken wifi features or the currently broken hdmi for positioning and/or playback.
The Black Edition is the way to go if you need increased image quality over the Hero 2 HD, but if finding it to not work would ruin your day, vacation, job, etc.; i.e. if you are in any situation where you really aren't going to tolerate a failure, then I'd recommend you either buy two (or three) or choose something else. The Hero 2 is nowhere near its image quality, but when I have two (bought from different entities, Amazon and GoPro) develop either a partial or complete failure over the span of four days, I don't see how you can safely rely on them to work.
I'm a current Hero 2 HD owner. I ordered a Hero 3 Black and Hero 3 White from GoPro themselves. I ordered a Wifi bacpac for my Hero 2, two Battery BacPac's for Hero 3 and a second Hero 3 Black from Amazon. I wanted all my cameras to be remotely controllable. I bought the two black editions for the supposed better low light performance, and the White to complement my Hero 2 where I just wanted more cameras and light wasn't a concern.
The pairing process to hook all the devices to the remote was easy enough but it went downhill from there. I'm editing this to bundle the product reviews together to identify differences. Here are problems I specifically encountered with the White Edition and wifi capabilities:
1) The wifi is supposed to remain active all the time once you turn it on. Yes this will ultimately drain your battery but that's for you to worry about on your own by choosing when to turn the wifi feature on. This did work correctly for me on the Hero 3 Blacks and my Hero 2 with Wifi BacPac. By remaining active, you can turn the camera on and off using the remote and start/stop recording via the remote. At some unknown interval, the White Edition camera would simply turn the wifi off on its own. I didn't spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly when that occured but it was often less than six hours.
This means if you want to have the cameras sitting around active, you need to regularly turn the camera back on and re-pair it with the remote. You can't just re-enable wifi on the Hero 3 (any of them) because the menu won't let you; the process of turning it on from an off status forces you to choose to pair with a remote and then choose to pair with either the current remote or a new remote. You then have to turn the remote on in pairing mode to complete the process. It would be a lot less annoying if you could simply turn wifi back on but you can't without going through the whole process. Fortunately the remote does not lose its pairing with the other units.
The Hero 2 HD + Wifi BacPac and the Hero 3 Black do not exhibit this issue. They will keep their wifi active until you turn it off or the battery dies.
2) If you manipulate the controls on the White Edition camera manually after you have turned wifi on, wifi will turn off. So, once paired and working via remote, if you decide to record something by starting the camera using its controls, wifi will turn off and you'll have to go through the whole pairing process again. The Hero 2 doesn't care, and most of the time the Black Edition didn't care either.
Both of these above issues with the White Edition have been confirmed as known issues by "Steve D" in GoPro support. They claim at some point a firmware update will be released to fix it. I'm not holding my breath on that because they've been having wifi bugs for many months now from what I've read.
My other notes that apply to all models:
1) Battery life is pretty poor if you're 'upgrading' from a Hero 2 HD. The White Edition has a battery life of a few minute more than an hour while continuous recording at 1080p / 30fps, so nearly half what the Hero 2 HD has. The Black Edition is ever so slightly less than the White.
2) The white edition is actually a bit of a downgrade in image quality and features from the Hero 2 HD; for example, you can't control the field of view at the two highest resolutions like you can on the Hero 2 HD. The quality is not quite as good either.
The Hero 3 Black Edition does let you control the field of view even at the very high resolutions. You may lose 'narrow' in some cases but you still retain wide and medium. Some options come and go depending on whether you enable ProTune mode or not.
3) The firmware upgrade process doesn't use the Cineform program like Hero 2 uses; you have to use a java-based updater via the GoPro website and I could not get it to work. I had to do their manual upgrade procedure instead which means typing in a bunch of information including the camera's serial number which is conveniently hidden under the battery, giving your camera a name and then they generate an updater tied to that specific camera serial which you place on the SD memory card, power the camera off and on and it will update itself. This is quite annoying since if you have multiple cameras to update, you have to type all the info in and get a new download for each one.
4) The USB and HDMI ports are covered by a removable door that is not attached to the camera, so prepare to lose it.
5) The White Edition does not include the same attachment brackets the Black Edition includes in the box. You lose the three axis arm and an additional snap in bracket.
6) I could never get the GoPro Preview App for Android to actually display an image on my phone for Black or White editions. I believe it only works at certain resolutions and 1080p is not one of them. You also have to communicate with it by having your phone connect to the camera using wifi, so your phone is going to lose internet access while controlling the GoPro. I was able to use the phone to stop and start recording but that was it; so between that and losing internet, the app is not particularly useful. The WiFi app can ONLY talk to one camera at a time, it is not like the remote that can stop and start many cameras.
7) On the White Edition, the micro-HDMI port doesn't actually work; I'm sure they'll be fixing that in a future firmware update. It does work fine on the Black Edition and the mini-HDMI on the Hero 2 HD works fine as well.
8) The wifi will randomly disassociate from the remote control on both models of Hero 3, in addition to the turning off issue it has on the White Edition. The White Edition was more susceptible to this issue but I did have it happen once on the Black and the only way I found to get it to pair again was to flash the firmware again; just trying the normal pairing process failed.
9) Of the three Hero 3's I purchased, I shot, or attempted to shoot, several hours of footage per day for five days. By the end of the second day, one of the Black Edition cameras would no longer power on at all. I swapped its battery to confirm that was not the issue. I tried the factory reset procedure I found on youtube, no luck. This unit is effectively dead. On day three, the second Black Edition would no longer function on its internal battery, however, it would still work fine using an attached Battery BacPac, so my recording time was halved but it at least remained working. The White edition continued to function this whole time, it just had the wifi issues and picture quality was not so great. The Hero 2 HD keeps chugging along for what's been years now; it almost feels like it came from a different company these Hero 3's are so poor.
Anyway, all three Hero 3's are on their way back; I simply couldn't deal with the problems and worried they would continue until the warranty was up and then I'd have no options.
My summary is basically that the White Edition is a waste of money because of the reduced picture quality (compared to Hero 2 HD and Hero 3 Black Edition), and especially if you intend to use the currently broken wifi features or the currently broken hdmi for positioning and/or playback.
The Black Edition is the way to go if you need increased image quality over the Hero 2 HD, but if finding it to not work would ruin your day, vacation, job, etc.; i.e. if you are in any situation where you really aren't going to tolerate a failure, then I'd recommend you either buy two (or three) or choose something else. The Hero 2 is nowhere near its image quality, but when I have two (bought from different entities, Amazon and GoPro) develop either a partial or complete failure over the span of four days, I don't see how you can safely rely on them to work.
33 commentsWas this review helpful to you?YesNoSending feedback...Report abuseShow more comments
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60 of 73 people found the following review helpful
ByAmazon Customeron August 20, 2013
We purchased a GoPro Hero 3 white edition for our vacation, which included plenty of time on the water. Having read the reviews on Amazon, we knew other people were having issues with the camera, but we decided to give it a try anyway. Bad mistake. Even though we read up on the issue on the forums, installed the latest firmware, bought only recommended micro-SD cards, and took great care with the camera, the camera went completely dead after two days. Nothing could bring it back to work. In fact it's still dead. We tried swapping out the battery, charging it without the battery in place, did all kinds of repetitive steps, etc. No result. This is the worst quality product I have purchased in a long time. Admittedly we were fools for buying it after we knew of the potential problems, but I am still surprised about the poor quality of this product. Broken after two days!
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107 of 133 people found the following review helpful
The camera is impressive. I see they are trying to improve their product line but lets be honest, they already have a great product line. So what can you do to make it better?
The remote is a great idea. The problem is its another thing we have to keep charged and it has a funny charge connector so good luck finding chargers. I would rather they have a wired remote but I do realize for head mounts it is not convenient to have a wire attached to the camera. I have found that the remote is nice but it has an odd charging port, would rather it had the same charge connector as the camera. The option of an App viewfinder has been nice to aim the camera and the reception has been impressive. Meaning I can be 30 feet from the camera and still have a video stream.
Which brings up a point, note that the camera does not include a wall charger or car charger so I suggest buying them when you buy the Hero
I see they updated the lens but for those of you who are not looking for an upgrade, rather just looking to buy a camera then rest assured they learned from previous versions and improved this one. This means this camera is a little ahead of the rest.
I am still playing with the camera so if I find anything interesting I will add it to this review.
Happy Shopping!
The remote is a great idea. The problem is its another thing we have to keep charged and it has a funny charge connector so good luck finding chargers. I would rather they have a wired remote but I do realize for head mounts it is not convenient to have a wire attached to the camera. I have found that the remote is nice but it has an odd charging port, would rather it had the same charge connector as the camera. The option of an App viewfinder has been nice to aim the camera and the reception has been impressive. Meaning I can be 30 feet from the camera and still have a video stream.
Which brings up a point, note that the camera does not include a wall charger or car charger so I suggest buying them when you buy the Hero
I see they updated the lens but for those of you who are not looking for an upgrade, rather just looking to buy a camera then rest assured they learned from previous versions and improved this one. This means this camera is a little ahead of the rest.
I am still playing with the camera so if I find anything interesting I will add it to this review.
Happy Shopping!
1010 commentsWas this review helpful to you?YesNoSending feedback...Report abuseShow more comments
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34 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Bydafloweron May 16, 2013
Love this camera - I upgraded from the original Hero and take it on all of my vacations. I took it snorkeling and the footage clearly captures me and my friends diving down to the coral to get up close to the fish. Compared to the previous model, which didn't shoot underwater very clearly - I am blown away with how clear and professional all of my underwater footage is. I've also taken it skiing - mounted to my ski pole and the footage is so awesome. The camera captured all of the powder we kicked up and we look like total pros!
Pros:
- Captures everything. Wasn't able to use a viewfinder underwater, so I was shooting a little blindly, but it literally captures everything. I haven't had any issues where I missed something b/c I mis-aimed the camera.
- Easy to use. I saw some wannabe GoPros on the ski slopes and people were fussing with them all day. There are only two buttons on this thing, that's all you need.
- Versatile! So far I've gotten videos of myself skiing, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, and even some awesome footage of my dog. I have a whole collection of mounts and gadgets for every occasion.
- Wifi control: So cool - I'm rarely without my phone, so the viewfinder and control is pretty cool.
- Cool factor - GoPro is such a cool brand, and when I take the camera with me, people always recognize it and want to talk about it.
Cons:
- Relies on existing light. Took it snorkeling through the caves which was eerie and cool, but it relied heavily on our underwater flashlight to see the stalagmites.
- Wifi drains your smartphone battery. As cool as the feature is - it's hard to do anything without a full battery on your smartphone. The wifi connectivity and viewfinder uses up your smartphone's battery.
Pros:
- Captures everything. Wasn't able to use a viewfinder underwater, so I was shooting a little blindly, but it literally captures everything. I haven't had any issues where I missed something b/c I mis-aimed the camera.
- Easy to use. I saw some wannabe GoPros on the ski slopes and people were fussing with them all day. There are only two buttons on this thing, that's all you need.
- Versatile! So far I've gotten videos of myself skiing, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, and even some awesome footage of my dog. I have a whole collection of mounts and gadgets for every occasion.
- Wifi control: So cool - I'm rarely without my phone, so the viewfinder and control is pretty cool.
- Cool factor - GoPro is such a cool brand, and when I take the camera with me, people always recognize it and want to talk about it.
Cons:
- Relies on existing light. Took it snorkeling through the caves which was eerie and cool, but it relied heavily on our underwater flashlight to see the stalagmites.
- Wifi drains your smartphone battery. As cool as the feature is - it's hard to do anything without a full battery on your smartphone. The wifi connectivity and viewfinder uses up your smartphone's battery.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
ByD. Harmson May 29, 2013
I purchased the GoPro Hero3 White Edition of the camera thinking that I'd save a few dollars and at least get the same quality camera as the older Hero2 with the added bonus of the built-in wifi. Boy was I was wrong.
I used the camera for the first time on a video shoot at a major rowing event. It was a bright sunny day with beautiful blue skies reflecting off the deep blue water. When I got back and loaded the video files into my computer for editing, I was shocked at how dull and flat the video looked. It made the sky look steel blue and the water look muddy - nothing like it looked in real life.
Upon seeing this, I took the Hero3 White and a Hero2 that I was borrowing and did a side by side test. I was blown away by the difference between the two. The older Hero2 video looked beautiful with vibrant colors. The Hero3 White looked as dull and flat as it had on the video shoot I had made the day before.
In fact, the video looked SO bad that I got in touch with tech support at GoPro to find out if I just happened to get a bad copy of the camera. I uploaded video files from my side by side test for them to see. Here's their response: "We believe the difference to be due to the image sensor. The White Edition, has a much smaller sensor compared to the Hero2 (5mp vs 11mp)."
So basically, the Hero3 White camera is less than half the quality of the older Hero2. Bottom line: it looks really bad.
I'm going to be returning the Hero3 White. It's just not up to the standards that I need to use anything it takes into the videos I produce since it just looks washed out and flat compared to the footage from the Hero2 and other HD cameras. Even with color correction in post production, it just doesn't cut it.
I learned a valuable lesson today: not all progress is progress - so don't assume a newer model is better than the old, even from a reputable company like GoPro.
I used the camera for the first time on a video shoot at a major rowing event. It was a bright sunny day with beautiful blue skies reflecting off the deep blue water. When I got back and loaded the video files into my computer for editing, I was shocked at how dull and flat the video looked. It made the sky look steel blue and the water look muddy - nothing like it looked in real life.
Upon seeing this, I took the Hero3 White and a Hero2 that I was borrowing and did a side by side test. I was blown away by the difference between the two. The older Hero2 video looked beautiful with vibrant colors. The Hero3 White looked as dull and flat as it had on the video shoot I had made the day before.
In fact, the video looked SO bad that I got in touch with tech support at GoPro to find out if I just happened to get a bad copy of the camera. I uploaded video files from my side by side test for them to see. Here's their response: "We believe the difference to be due to the image sensor. The White Edition, has a much smaller sensor compared to the Hero2 (5mp vs 11mp)."
So basically, the Hero3 White camera is less than half the quality of the older Hero2. Bottom line: it looks really bad.
I'm going to be returning the Hero3 White. It's just not up to the standards that I need to use anything it takes into the videos I produce since it just looks washed out and flat compared to the footage from the Hero2 and other HD cameras. Even with color correction in post production, it just doesn't cut it.
I learned a valuable lesson today: not all progress is progress - so don't assume a newer model is better than the old, even from a reputable company like GoPro.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
ByHavokk "Legion"on August 9, 2013
ok i got this for use as a dash cam in my car. i like the app on the phone (android phone) and althought it has issues at times, all of which can be solved by restarting phone and/or camera. Camera seems to over heat with the usb charger cable attached or just on battery. I live in Rhode Island so its not like i live in the desert or on the sun. It is a bit of a bitch but i do enjoy it but can't bring my self to give it more than 2 stars since is its pretty labor intensive to start everything up
(or restart everything so it works as a dash cam) message me for more details but over all the video quality is great. It is a good camera but just overheats very easily. i have it attached to my windshield facing towards the direction of my travel. it has a very good wide angel lens and gets a very wide/clear video of what is going on around me. For the money i spent i would expect it to work a little better with less failure. Again the app on my android phone works great. If the people at gopro are reading this plz do something about the overheating issue. Sound and video quality when it does work is great. hope this helps out everyone. good luck people.
(or restart everything so it works as a dash cam) message me for more details but over all the video quality is great. It is a good camera but just overheats very easily. i have it attached to my windshield facing towards the direction of my travel. it has a very good wide angel lens and gets a very wide/clear video of what is going on around me. For the money i spent i would expect it to work a little better with less failure. Again the app on my android phone works great. If the people at gopro are reading this plz do something about the overheating issue. Sound and video quality when it does work is great. hope this helps out everyone. good luck people.
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26 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Bydehalorespireon January 4, 2013
While a great concept, this thing is a trainwreck. I purchased this 2 weeks ago for a week of snorkeling in on reefs in Mexico. I am writing this from the lobby of the resort.
It locked up (froze) the first time I used it. Then it managed to take 3 photos and 5 videos on the beach. Three of the videos are great, two of them are purple and yellow and pixelated. Then the it froze again, and again, and again. Two times, it just got hot and the battery discharged despite not being powered on. The only solution is to pull the battery out to reset. I have done this 80 times in the last 5 days.
Apparently, there is a new firmware update that may take care of these problems. That said, the camera is so buggy, that I cant even follow the update instructions on the GoPro website. I have been trying to update the camera for 2 hours now....This is such a rampant problem with the GoPro3's (see reviews elsewhere), that it is hard to imagine that GoPro was unaware of the problem. If they were not aware, then they released the camera without sufficient testing.
This will probably be a fantastic tool and toy once GoPro gets its act together, hence the 2 stars; until then, stay away from this thing. It has left me and my family with no way of recording memories from our once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon, reef adventure. I will try one last time to update the camera. If it does, then I will update my review.
***amendment***
I have given up trying to update the firmware. I have followed their instructions to the letter (4 times), but it freezes and fails to update. It doesn't even tell me that it failed to update as it is supposed to. Perhaps I just got a bad one.
It locked up (froze) the first time I used it. Then it managed to take 3 photos and 5 videos on the beach. Three of the videos are great, two of them are purple and yellow and pixelated. Then the it froze again, and again, and again. Two times, it just got hot and the battery discharged despite not being powered on. The only solution is to pull the battery out to reset. I have done this 80 times in the last 5 days.
Apparently, there is a new firmware update that may take care of these problems. That said, the camera is so buggy, that I cant even follow the update instructions on the GoPro website. I have been trying to update the camera for 2 hours now....This is such a rampant problem with the GoPro3's (see reviews elsewhere), that it is hard to imagine that GoPro was unaware of the problem. If they were not aware, then they released the camera without sufficient testing.
This will probably be a fantastic tool and toy once GoPro gets its act together, hence the 2 stars; until then, stay away from this thing. It has left me and my family with no way of recording memories from our once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon, reef adventure. I will try one last time to update the camera. If it does, then I will update my review.
***amendment***
I have given up trying to update the firmware. I have followed their instructions to the letter (4 times), but it freezes and fails to update. It doesn't even tell me that it failed to update as it is supposed to. Perhaps I just got a bad one.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
ByJeremiah Mauricioon May 23, 2013
I know it is an on going problem with the GoPros that the battery life is not very good and that simply having the battery in the camera while it's off can drain the battery but I never imagined how bad it would be. I charged the camera overnight, I headed off to a car race with the camera completely off and the battery inside. 4 hours later when I put the camera on the car and turned it on I was down to 20% battery life.
Then running the wifi so I could remotely start the cameras before I my runs, the camera died after 20 minutes. I'm not sure what they are doing at GoPro but this is rediculous. I chose the white edition because it is supposed to be the most power efficient of the GoPro3s, and now I'm planning to run a power wire to the camera from the car so that I don't have miss recording my races.
Very disappointing, in every aspect, hopeful the video quality is better than the GoPro2s.
Then running the wifi so I could remotely start the cameras before I my runs, the camera died after 20 minutes. I'm not sure what they are doing at GoPro but this is rediculous. I chose the white edition because it is supposed to be the most power efficient of the GoPro3s, and now I'm planning to run a power wire to the camera from the car so that I don't have miss recording my races.
Very disappointing, in every aspect, hopeful the video quality is better than the GoPro2s.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful
ByK. Bibaon May 29, 2013
Just got a Hero3 White to replace a Hero2 that did heroic work on high power amateur rockets.
The good news is a very compact design.
The bad news is an impossible job getting it to work.
1. The camera MUST be upgraded to latest firmware out of the box.
2. The instructions in the package recommend that the update be done via the web.
3. The web update process simply does not work on my MacBook Air under Mac OS X 10.8. (The tech support later confirmed that despite the in box instructions, they recommend that the manual update method is more reliable).
4. Rather tedious manual update process that required tech support intervention.
5. Could not get WiFi access to the camera from the GoPro App on my iPhone 5 to work (despite the efforts of their tech support folks who tried to convince me it was not a WiFi device).
6. Now going to try a warranty replacement to see if a new camera makes a difference. It shouldn't make a difference and if it does it means that this product has a VERY fragile design.
We shall see ... but a new product commissioning process that violates the inbox instructions, requires a brand new product to be updated before use, has tech support folks that don't understand their own product and STILL does not work properly is simply unacceptable.
The good news is a very compact design.
The bad news is an impossible job getting it to work.
1. The camera MUST be upgraded to latest firmware out of the box.
2. The instructions in the package recommend that the update be done via the web.
3. The web update process simply does not work on my MacBook Air under Mac OS X 10.8. (The tech support later confirmed that despite the in box instructions, they recommend that the manual update method is more reliable).
4. Rather tedious manual update process that required tech support intervention.
5. Could not get WiFi access to the camera from the GoPro App on my iPhone 5 to work (despite the efforts of their tech support folks who tried to convince me it was not a WiFi device).
6. Now going to try a warranty replacement to see if a new camera makes a difference. It shouldn't make a difference and if it does it means that this product has a VERY fragile design.
We shall see ... but a new product commissioning process that violates the inbox instructions, requires a brand new product to be updated before use, has tech support folks that don't understand their own product and STILL does not work properly is simply unacceptable.
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