I've had several GoPros (a half dozen over the years), and I'm a early-adopter of consumer 360 video. This camera was specifically purchased to replace my Samsung Gear 360 which easily produces 360 video, but has sub-par video quality. Given that the GoPro Omni runs about $1,400, the GoPro Fusion is a steal at less than half that cost.
This GoPro Fusion is a beast. The housing is 2-3 times larger than even the largest other GoPro models, the battery is about twice as large, and the camera requires two micro-SD cards to even function (one card for the forward-facing lens, and one card for the rear-facing lens). The files are also HUGE (more on that later). Thankfully though, even though the camera is physically much larger than any other GoPro before it, it still uses the same versatile mounts.
The GoPro Fusion looks and feels like a camera that has potential, but GoPro has got to get better file compression and make the app/software integration better. I was totally unable to stitch and render any 360 video on my phone because of the massive space requirements, so I downloaded the Windows 10 desktop software. When I then tried to stitch and render a video of approximately 1.5 minutes in length, I could see that the resulting file would take hours to render (not including the time it'd take to then upload it later to YouTube) and would be nearly six gigabytes in size. To be clear, that's one huge video. This estimated size I was given for a 1.5 minute video with the GoPro Fusion was the same as the average rip of a 2-hour Blu-Ray video.
The sheer size of the files that the GoPro Fusion produces and the fact that the computer horsepower required to stitch and render them is quite significant makes this a no-go for me. Unless you're going to stick to filming videos of only a few seconds in length, any videos that are a few minutes in length will require hours of your time. That's just too heavy of a commitment for me to have the latest/greatest in "wow" factor videos. I'd rather invest the time and money in full-frame video from a mirrorless camera or using another GoPro action cam.
To be clear, this camera has awesome potential and the image quality is outstanding (it's an absolute game changer). But the technology is so cutting edge that I don't see this being a practical camera unless you're a pro or pro-am with hardcore hardware and a lot of time on your hands.
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