My GoPro Hero 12 Black arrived today. And I have to say there is a bit of a departure from GoPros of old. Gone is the nifty black zipper carry case that was so useful for many things (I have them acting as camera cases and even first aid kits). Also gone is the ‘complementary’ SD card you got with earlier models as I recall (but not the 11).
The packaging is minimal too, with a thin cardboard outer and a clamshell interior that I think is made of polar bear friendly bamboo.
Inside the clamshell, you get the camera and battery, a USB cable, and a single sticky helmet mount and a camera mount adaptor with its threaded screw. Oh and there’s some documentation including telling you that you need to do a firmware update of the camera before using, and diagrams on mounting and charging the camera.
The recommended update procedure is to install the GoPro Quik app on your smartphone, and then, theoretically, when you turn the phone on and the app is running, a Wi-fi connection will be automatically made and the Quik app update the camera via an internet connection.
Except after 5 different attempts, my Samsung A71 and Quik failed to detect the camera. Ho hum.
Your other option then is to download the update from the GoPro website, unzip it, copy the UPDATE folder into the root directory of an SD card, put that in the camera (with it turned off) and then turn the camera on.
As I recall, in days of old, GoPros came with around a 30% charge in the battery letting you do this (it requires a 20% minimum charge to do the update), but mine was stony flat, so it is currently getting some electricities pumped into it so I can do this necessary update.
Cosmetically, the 12 looks exactly like the 11 before it, except for a blue fleck that has been introduced to the exterior colouring. I had to do a minor bit of surgery as all the glass bits – front and rear screens and the lens itself – came covered with a sticky paper protective cover, and the one for the front screen didn’t come away cleanly and had to be carefully coaxed and peeled off in tiny bits.
What’s New
So, without actually firing the GoPro 12 up, here is an update on what to expect as ‘new’.
Firstly there is a new version of HyperSmooth, the video stabilisation system that GoPro is rightly very proud of. Once I have a charge in the battery, this will be one of the first things I’ll test out.
The Horizon Lock and Horizon Levelling system are unchanged though, still with full 360° rotation allowed in 5.3K30, 4K60 and 2.7K120 for the Lock and 5.3K60, 4K120 and 2.7K240, 1080/240 at 27° for the Levelling.
A major addition is the inclusion of HDR video in 5.3K, 4K (8:7 ratio) and 4K (16:9) ratio.
One very big change that seems to have upset a few people, and apparently done to minimise the overheating issues that plague GoPros, is the removal of any GPS capability. I know of a few people where this is a deal breaker for them. One can only hope that any focus groups that GoPro approached showed that a lack of GPS was not that big a deal and the company didn’t just remove it ‘because’.
Of course, due to this, also missing is any data overlay capacity.
And that is about it, so you’d have to say it is not a momentous upgrade overall, unless the addition of HDR is a major thing to you. In software terms, this would be called a point upgrade (say 11.0 to 11.5 as against 11 to 12) in my opinion to date.
In actual usage, this may bear differently of course, and I’ll give an update on this shortly once the electricities have caught up.
Footnote: I haven’t received the new Lens Mod as yet which is why I haven’t mentioned it here.
