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Comment by yathern

17 hours ago

> there are dozens of no-brand options on Amazon and Ali that do 4K60fps

I have to very strongly disagree with this sentiment. I have personally tested quite a few no-name "4K 60fps" cameras from Amazon and AliExpress. Many of them upscale from 1080 - which is fine I guess - but then in 60fps will use a crop sensor and upscale from like ~640. Even with the more recognizable SJCam and Akaso brands, unless you're paying ~$200 - you're going to get upscaling, bad color science, bad image distortion. When comparing against a GoPro 5 (first 4k 60 entry) or 8 (first with USB C) the difference is astounding.

Though perhaps this is the difference between good and great that you refer to - but for me, it's certainly worth getting a used GoPro vs any of these modern cheap alternatives.

Unfortunately current new GoPros don't improve on their existing line enough to justify paying current prices. I wish I could get a new 2018 quality GoPro knockoff for <$200

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yathern

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brk  11 hours ago

I'll have to try and dig out a couple of the ones I bought and re-verify this. Really though the 60fps doesn't matter for the majority of users. Even the 4K aspect is overkill for most common things.

ISTR GoPro moved away from Ambarella SoCs several years ago and rolled their own, but most of the other cameras are using Amba, Novatek, etc., and certainly offer great performance for a fraction of the cost of GoPro.

  • Gigachad  5 hours ago

    It’s less that 4k 60fps doesn’t matter, but that most mobile cheap cameras are so poor quality that you don’t see much of a difference. The sensors are so small that switching to 60fps leaves less time for the shutter speed so you end up with a noisy image.

    On a good camera the difference is stark.

magicalhippo  14 hours ago

I saw a review on YouTube of a lot of these alternatives, along with the established brands, and in bright sunlight and little movement some were ok but quality was all over.

However once it got a bit darker, or heavy movement, the big brands left the rest in the dust pretty much.

So yeah, do a bit of research and figure out your use-case.