The compact screenless Hero is worth the wait for thrill seeker
While to some the screenless GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini seems like a budget option, to the brand’s base of extreme sports enthusiasts and high-octane adventurers the Hero 11 Black Mini could be the best GoPro product of the year. It seems the action camera maker has saved the best till last.
The new Hero 11 Black Mini is available globally from today (Tuesday, November 8), an unexpected early arrival since GoPro pushed back its release date to November 18 recently.
The Hero 11 Black Mini is a bit cheaper than the standard Hero 11 Black, costing $299.98 / £299.98 / AU$499 when you purchase the camera with an included one-year GoPro subscription, with an additional $49.99 / £49.99 / AU$70 per year thereafter.
While you can opt out of the GoPro Subscription at any time if you’re willing to pay the full initial price of $449.98 / £449.98 / AU$799.95, one of the biggest features of the range this year was the access to remote processing of video files so you can edit your footage into professional clips on-the-go.
Analysis: Bigger doesn’t always mean better
The main drawcard of the GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini is that it’s 13% smaller than the Hero 11 Black – important if you’re trying to hold it in your mouth (we’re referring to the bite mounts here, we’re not uncouth) or on a helmet for hours – and it’s got a new set of low-profile mounts that allow it to get into tighter, more secure places.
The Hero 11 Black Mini features the same larger 8:7 sensor as the Hero 11 Black and all the same HyperSmooth 5.0, 10-bit color depth, and HyperView wide angle lens as you get on GoPro’s other 2022 cameras. So there really is a lot more bang for your buck here.
The device also gets the new Enduro Lithium Ion rechargeable battery technology, but in a smaller 1,500mAh capacity. This smaller battery loses the ability to be swapped out, but it manages to benefit from the lack of a screen to get comparable runtimes with the standard Hero 11 Black.
It’s also probably the camera that’ll get the most out of the automatic cloud uploads, and the AI GoPro Quick highlights reel that gets edited automatically in the cloud and sent to your smartphone.
All in all, there’s a great balance of price and feature set here, making it a strong contender to be one of the best action cameras you can get.
