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The GoPro HD Helmet Hero may not be as small or good-looking as the Contour GPS action cam, but it has plenty of other advantages. Like the GPS, it can shoot at 1,920×1,080 at 30fps and also has a 60fps 720p mode, which is great for slo-mo footage.
It comes with more mounts as standard: two adhesive ones for flat surfaces, and another two for curved surfaces. There’s also an elastic head strap, plus a bike helmet mount (an optional extra with Contour’s camera). To allow mounting to vertical surfaces, there’s a 90-degree adaptor for use with any of the mounts. Another bonus is that the housing is waterproof to 60m as standard, but there’s an open back for better audio recording when waterproofing isn’t required.
The camera itself has a tiny LCD display which means you can adjust settings without connecting it to a computer. It shows the current mode, video resolution, number of files recorded on the SD card, battery level and more. However, there’s no viewfinder, so you’ll still need to take some test footage to make sure you’ll capture the action in those important moments. Thanks to the proprietary expansion connector, you can add a viewfinder – the bad news is it costs £90.
Here’s some of our test footage, shot using the included helmet mount – click through to YouTube for a HD version
As well as video, the Hero can capture 5-megapixel photos. It can take single shots, a trio of frames over two seconds or continuously at intervals of two to 60 seconds. There’s even a 10-second self-timer. Although the menu system is hard to use, it doesn’t take long to learn which modes you prefer to use. A thoughtful touch is a table of the various video resolutions on the rear cover.
There are more menu settings than you’d expect. It’s possible, for example to set the camera to record automatically when turned on, providing fool-proof one-touch recording. You can also choose between auto, centre-weighted or spot metering, upside-down recording (if you need to invert the camera), enable or disable a live video feed (using the video output), delete the last file recorded and more.
Build quality is excellent. The buttons on the polycarbonate housing work reliably, and the housing itself protects the camera from knocks and scratches. Spares are easily available, as are other types of mounts.
Thanks to a wide-angle f/2.8 lens with fixed focus, image quality is very good. Colours are accurate and detail levels were far superior to the Contour GPS. We found the default 1,280×960 setting the best, thanks to a massive 170-degree view. The only disadvantage is the huge amount of barrel distortion, but you see far more of the scene than in the 720p or 1080p modes which don’t have much distortion. Audio quality is less impressive, so don’t expect a soundtrack that rivals a standard camcorder.
GoPro claims the Li-ion battery lasts almost 2.5 hours, and this was borne out in our tests. You can buy a second battery that plugs into the proprietary connector for around £50. A spare battery is cheaper at around £20. Annoyingly, there’s no mains charger, so you’ll need one – or a handy USB port on a computer. The Hero will carry on filming while charging, but you can’t transfer files from the SD card.
Although it isn’t cheap, the Helmet Hero’s great footage makes it the best action cam we’ve seen. It may not have a built-in GPS receiver like the Contour GPS, but we’d far rather have decent image quality.
