GoPro Hero10 “Creator Edition” Review

The Subtle upgrades and mods are enough to make this the best GoPro ever.

Earlier this year, GoPro released the latest edition of its Hero Camera, The Hero 10. When we reviewed the Hero 9 last year we were blown away by the addition of a dual LCD and ‘Hypersmooth’ stabilisation capabilities and to be honest, weren’t quite sure how GoPro could improve this camera further unless there was some change to the form factor. 

Well, it turns out there is with none of the form factor changing and also some brilliant hardware accessories to suit.

Design

If you were a previous owner of Hero 9, you’ll notice that much has changed in terms of form factor, in fact holding them in both hands side by side they’re almost identical.

Size-wise the Hero 10 has the same body as its predecessor and thats probably a nod to the success of the GoPro mods that fit on Hero 9 and making them backwards compatible will no doubt favour the GoPro enthusiasts when they look to upgrade.

The Hero10 however is slightly lighter although you wont really notice it.

The main difference you’ll notice is the text has changed from a plain grey to a “GoPro Blue” making the Hero10 recognisable with bold branding.

Whilst it is not at all recognisable to the naked eye, one additional design change GoPro has added is on the Lens itself. This year’s version features a new water-repelling hydrophobic material which almost makes droplets slide off without obscuring your view, so spitting on your lens should now hopefully be a thing of the past.

Features

If the GoPro has left a bitter taste for its die-hard in terms of design changes (We personally don’t think that’s a bad thing at all) then they have certainly made up for it in terms of features.

What’s amazing about this year’s camera is that nothing has had to be changed in terms of design to fit the upgrades that were no doubt needed and asked for by its users.

It all starts with the new GP2 chip. Now that these newer GoPro’s carry dual LCD displays there needed to be something more powerful to make it operate and it shows instantaneously.

The front LCD display runs a lot smoother and clearer than the Hero9 and navigating through the menu’s feels a lot quicker and responsive too. You may remember that slight “processing pause” you would get when taking stills on Hero9 and models before, well that has all but disappeared on Hero10. This is exactly what GoPro had intended and felt they needed to fix given their “Speed with Ease” marketing tagline.

Perhaps the biggest upgrades to La Decima comes in the form of resolution, frame rates and Hypersmooth.

When pushed to its limits, the Hero9 was able to churn out 5K at 30FPS which is still pretty awesome today, however, the Hero10 is able to hit 5.3k at 60FPS and 4K has also improved to 120fps from 60 previously, which is great for capturing better slo-mo shots.

All of these are worthy upgrades but throw-in Hypersmooth 4.0 and you’ve now got a camera that blows all of its competition out of the water. Hypersmooth 4.0 in boost mode is so mind-blowingly stable that GoPro will eventually cripple the gimbal business.

It would have been nice to see video cope slightly better in low light as it’s always been the thorn in the side for almost all action cameras but there are ways around that and we’ll touch on this a little later.

One feature that may go under the radar is the ability to now pull footage straight out of the camera onto your phone via a wire. Yes, you read that right, in what seems to be a prequel of a feature this will no doubt be used by vloggers and influencers to get that footage off the camera onto your device without having to connect wirelessly. It works lightning fast and makes creating via the Quik app a breeze! Even better you can also use this on Hero9 too.

Creator Edition

We’ve mentioned how impressed we are by the slight but worthy upgrades in the Hero10, but for us the biggest win came in the form of GoPro’s latest bundle. Hero10 Creator Editon.

The Creator Edition of Hero10 is 4 piece bundle comprising of the camera itself, the new “Volta” camera grip/tripod, A Media mod and a Light mod. When put together it creates a brilliant all-round setup for those wanting to take their filmmaking a bit more seriously and even venture out slightly from using it as an ‘action camera’.

Media Mod + Light Mod

Both the Media Mod and Light mod work together but as the name suggests are both modular at the same time meaning you can use them separately as you wish.

The Media mod is essentially a shell that covers the camera itself in resemblance to a bumper cover for a phone but it ‘plugs in’ to the Hero10 via USB-C and includes a directional camera to really improve the sound quality both in front and behind the camera when recording footage.

If you really wanted to improve audio capture further the Media Mod also allows you to plug in a 3.5mm external mic and charge your camera via another USB port as pass through.

The Media-mod case has an open bottom so you can conveniently take advantage of the camera’s attachment prongs allowing you to attach it onto other mounts without having to mess around with more parts.

On top of the Media Mod is a Cold shoe mount for you to attach the Light Mod quickly and easily. 

We found the Light Mod to be such a valuable and useful little addition to the kit, not only because it’s SO bright but also so versatile.

It can be charged via USB, has 3 modes (low, high, and interval) and also comes with a small diffuser to manage light levels if needs be. The one thing we really like about the light mod is that it can work independently as a light source. E.g. you can have it mounted to your head or chest or anywhere that seems fit in order to get the perfect scene.

Given the form factor, action cameras were always going to have to sacrifice something in order to keep things as compact as possible. Unfortunately, this has always been light and sound but with the Media + Light Mod, the GoPro team of designers has done a really good job in giving the Hero10 the extra capabilities it would have been lacking on its own. 

Volta

Last but not least, it’s the Volta grip. The creme de la creme of GoPro accessories and the best one they’ve ever made. 

As with the Media + Light Mod, the team at GoPro has done an excellent job in having a crack at this one, not only because it’s multifunctional, but because each function seems to have provided solutions to previous problems.

Take for example battery life, previously any previous GoPro’s and even the new Hero10 would slack in this department and that’s not surprising given the size of the camera and the battery inside. Whilst you can make slight adjustments to really get as much juice out of your day if you ever did forget to charge you’d find yourself in a pickle.

This is where one of the features of Volta excels. Inside the grip is a 4900mah battery that plugs right into the GoPro. This gives it triple the amount of battery it previously had meaning battery problems are now a thing of the past.

Another one of the great features of Volta is its integrated camera buttons, so there is no need to fiddle around with menus and screen gestures, everything can be done directly from the handle.

As for the handle itself, the ergonomic design is extremely comfortable to hold, has an extra clip to mount the GoPro onto a bag, and it even doubles up as a tripod meaning you can get those epic timelapses and night still too.

If that wasn’t enough, the grip itself also acts as a Bluetooth remote control so you can use it to control your camera hands-free up to 98 feet away.

Volta is also weatherproof so you can use it in snow and rain although don’t attempt to take it fully underwater.

Verdict

If we were to do this review on the GoPro Hero10 independently of its mod’s, we’d still be very impressed. It manages to tick all of the boxes in terms of upgrades we’d expect and want from a new edition but couple this with the mods and the brilliant Volta grip, this really got us excited about GoPro again.

It’s actually hard to say what we don’t like about The Creator edition and we’re really looking forward to stretching it to its limits. 

Priced up at just over £500, it may be slightly out of range for those getting their first action camera who will use it in a limited capacity, however, if you’re willing to take your filmmaking a bit more seriously (and this is exactly the audience Creator edition is aimed for) then we’d say this is definitely a worthy upgrade.

HERO10 Black Creator Edition

£24.99

BUY NOW

Gopro.com

as of October 27, 2024 6:36 pm

Your All-In-One Creative Powerhouse
The HERO10 Black Creator Edition is an all-in-one content capturing powerhouse that makes vlogging, filmmaking and live streaming easier than ever. This complete system features pro-quality 5.3K video, Emmy® award-winning HyperSmooth 4.0 video stabilization, enhanced audio, powerful LED lighting and 4 hours of 4K recording per charge.1
HERO10 Black Creator Edition includes:
HERO10 Black + Battery
Volta Battery Grip
Media Mod
Light Mod
32GB SD card
Get the best of everything with a GoPro Subscription
Unlimited cloud backup + auto uploads
Unlimited use of the Quik app
Up to 50% off at GoPro.com²
No-questions-asked camera replacement³

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Carmen Adkins