GoPro Hero 11 Black review: The action camera gets cranked up to 11

The whoopee camera originator is when with its eleventh model in the Hero series, the GoPro Hero 11 Black. On first impressions, the new Hero looks identical to both the Hero 9 and 10 that came surpassing it, but don't be fooled, there's a lot going on under the surface here.

There's a new sensor at the cadre of the Hero 11, and it brings with it some heady new possibilities. There's moreover a move to 10-bit colour and higher bitrates than overly before, which is sure to be welcome news to professional users.

If that all sounds a bit confusing, the trademark has moreover created a simplified mode which allows beginners to get up and running without needing to know all the technical jargon.

So, with these features in mind, it would seem that Hero 11 has set its sights on stuff the perfect whoopee camera for professionals and newcomers alike. It's an would-be goal, so we've been putting the new camera to the test in order to find out if it succeeds.

Design

• Weight: 154g
• Waterproof up to 10m / 33ft
• Replaceable hydrophobic lens cover

The diamond of the Hero 11 Black is identical to the Hero 10 Black, which in turn was identical to the Hero 9 Black. All that's reverted is that the new model has an 11 printed on the side, so there's not a lot to talk well-nigh on the diamond front.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, as it ways the Hero 11 maintains compatibility with GoPro's expansive lineup of mounts and accessories. It moreover ways that batteries are interchangeable between all three models, which comes in extremely handy when you're running low on juice.

Waterproofing remains unchanged, and we still get the spanking-new hydrophobic coating on the lens protector. GoPro's materials state that the camera is 1 gram lighter than the Hero 10, but our scales measured 0.3 grams heavier. Either way, the two cameras weigh well-nigh the same.

We'd love to see a reduction in weight, as this is one of the heavier whoopee cameras on the market, but GoPro has moreover introduced the Hero 11 Mini which could placate those looking to shave weight without compromising on quality. We'll hopefully be giving the camera's slimmed-down sibling a thorough testing in the near future, too.

Video and Photo capture

• Video resolution: 5.3K/60fps, 4K/120fps, 2.7K/240fps
• Photo resolution: 27MP
• HyperSmooth 5.0 and 360-degree horizon lock
• 10-bit colour and 120Mbps bitrate

As we mentioned up top, the highlight here is the Hero 11 Black's new larger sensor. However, instead of just increasing the sensor size in the hopes of gaining largest low-light performance and clarity, GoPro has taken a variegated approach.

The new sensor has an 8:7 speciality ratio and this almost-square format allows for way increasingly headroom. As a result, the camera gets the new HyperView digital lens, improved HyperSmooth wideness the board, 360-degree horizon locking and the worthiness to segregate between vertical and horizontal cropping without shooting.

What's more, the Hero 11 is the first whoopee camera that benefits from 10-bit colour, which ways it captures over 1 billion shades of colour, compared to 16.7 million colours in the 8-bit recording mode. This comes in very handy during post-production, expressly if you shoot in a unappetizing profile. It moreover ways that Hero 11 footage can be largest matched to larger professional cameras, and this is sure to excite anyone working in professional video environments.

For us, the new HyperView lens was one of the standout features. The extremely wide and distorted field-of-view creates an spanking-new sense of speed and excitement for first-person shots. It's not something you'd want to use in every scenario, as the distortion is pretty extreme, but when used with a chest mount it looks amazing.

HyperSmooth stabilisation, which was once spanking-new in the last couple of releases, has been improved plane further. The biggest transpiration is the new AutoBoost mode, which automatically activates when the camera gets particularly shaky, smoothly zooming in on the footage to alimony things super steady. This is the kind of effect that could only be achieved in post-production on previous models, so having it baked into the camera is an spanking-new time saver.

Horizon levelling now works with well-constructed 360 rotation, which is powerfully like having the Max Lens Mod built right into the camera - albeit with a narrower field-of-view. It's a tomfool full-length and allows you to throw the camera in the air or strap it onto a car steering wheel while the resulting video stays perfectly stable. That said, in our day-to-day use, it's not something we've often needed.

What we found much increasingly useful was the new 8:7 shooting mode, it's an spanking-new wing and, in use, reminds us of the way we edit footage from 360 cameras like the Insta360 X3. Essentially this video mode captures the whole 8:7 sensor, then in the app, you can segregate to export it as a 16:9 video for YouTube, a 9:16 for TikTok and a 4:3 for your Instagram grid. It's a really handy way to imbricate all of your desired platforms in one shot.

Photos can moreover take wholesomeness of the full sensor, and you can use the app to reframe your snaps to horizontal, vertical and 4:3 formats. In addition, we're given a small tumor in resolution, now 27MP compared to 23MP on the Hero 10.

The Hero 10 once produced the weightier footage of any whoopee camera that we've tested, and the Hero 11 looks plane largest thanks to its higher bitrate and colour depth. We think GoPro's tideway was smart here - we weren't lacking in frame rate options or resolution on the Hero 10, so instead choosing to focus on shooting modes makes a much greater difference in practice.

Features and battery

• Swappable 1720mAh Enduro battery
• New easy-control mode and night effects
• GP2 processor

The Hero 11 Black ships with the upgraded Enduro shower in the box, and when combined with its refined firmware, GoPro says it offers a 38 per cent increase in recording time over the standard Hero 10. In reality, you'll still likely want to bring increasingly than one shower on a long day shooting, but it's a definite improvement, which should be plane increasingly noticeable in unprepossessed weather.

The camera uses the same GP2 processor as last year's model. On the Hero 10, it impressed us with the menu fluidity and touch screen responsiveness, and we're happy to see that remains the same here. What has been improved, though, is the way we interact with the menus.

GoPro has realised that without virtually two decades of constantly subtracting features, its menus had wilt somewhat intimidating, expressly for those new to the world of video-making. To make things easier for beginners, the camera now ships in Easy Mode wherein you simply segregate between the highest quality or extended shower life, and the camera pretty much figures out the rest. Once you're ready to swoop into the increasingly wide settings, switching to Pro Mode brings when the wealth of settings and configurability we are familiar with.

Also new on this model, are some spanking-new time-lapse presets for light painting, vehicle trails and star trails. These work excellently, permitting you to capture flashy footage with no post-processing whatsoever.

The Quik app has moreover seen upgrades including the worthiness to auto-upload your footage to the deject at source resolution. The service will moreover be worldly-wise to send you AI-generated highlight videos, but during our testing, this had yet to be implemented.

Finally (and this is a big one for us), the pairing process to connect your GoPro to the app seems to have been vastly improved. We're not exactly sure what has changed, but it now works flawlessly with our Android devices - in stark unrelatedness to previous GoPro cameras.