Gopro Hero 8 Vs Max 360

What are the GoPro Hero viii Black and Max?

GoPro has completely reworked its pinnacle-end action cameras. The GoPro Hero 8 Black and GoPro Max are flagship replacements for the Hero 7 Black and Fusion.

The start is a high-cease consumer action camera, the second a 360-degree photographic camera that lowers the (RRP) entry price for such footage. Well, from GoPro at least.

Much like the Fusion and Hero seven Black generation, many of you may observe the Hero 8 Blackness more than useful for standard activeness cam scenarios. It'due south smaller and therefore easier to mount on bikes, helmets and and so on. However, the Max lets yous get more creative with captured footage. And the price difference is less than yous might guess.

The GoPro Max and Hero 8 Black were appear on October i. This is a year on from the Hero vii Black'south release and two years since the Fusion arrived. The Fusion was GoPro'southward outset 360-degree camera.

There was a huge deviation in price between those ii before models, of around £300. GoPro has managed to cut that down to a £100 gap.

Related: GoPro Hero 8 Black review

The GoPro Hero 8 Black costs £379, and the Max £479. GoPro's bulletin is clear. Information technology wants u.s.a. to call up of the Max equally a mainstream camera, much more so than the Fusion.

That camera'due south online price has also dropped an awful lot since launch, though. You could detect the Fusion for around £375 online at the time of the Max's release.

GoPro Hero 8 Blackness vs GoPro Max — Design

GoPro has brought the size of the 360-caste Max closer to that of the Hero eight Black, as well every bit the cost. The Fusion felt a bit similar two Hero-serial cameras stacked on meridian of each other, the Max is closer to ane.5x the meridian of the Hero 8 Black.

This is a classic instance of a pattern heading towards maturity. GoPro has conspicuously found ways to make the camera's use of internal space more efficient – and that's a huge benefit for highly agile users.

I don't strap an action photographic camera onto my bike helmet likewise ofttimes, but the less information technology sticks out the better. It looks less airheaded, and means you have to worry about knocking it less. A Fusion on a bike helmet felt precarious.

The GoPro Hero 8 Blackness gets some important practical upgrades too. Yous no longer need a frame to use GoPro mounts, as the mounting "fingers" required are congenital into the camera itself.

Is GoPro toning down its obsession with accessories? Not remotely. The Hero 8 Black now has a modular range of add-ons. These include a front brandish (£79.99), a ten-led lite (£49.99) and an advanced mic case (£79.99).

Related: GoPro Hero 8 Black vs Hero 7 Black: five key differences

Notwithstanding, GoPro says the mic quality of the Max matches the Hero 8 Black with the mic Mod. At that place are 6 mics for 360-caste spatial audio. Add the microphone add-on to the cost of the Black and you are very close to the cost of the Max.

The Max also has a screen this fourth dimension around, one time again giving it a mainstream appeal much closer to the Black serial. You don't necessarily demand the screen for 360-degree video. But information technology can, of course, exercise much more than than that.

GoPro Hero 8 Black vs GoPro Max — Sensor and lens

GoPro likes to say the Max has "4 digital lenses". But as a 360-degree camera it actually has two 180-degree "real" lenses that give it a full view of the world around it.

You can take 360-degree video like the Fusion, and use similar fields of view as the Hero 8 Blackness. These will seem pretty familiar if you take used a recent high-end GoPro.

They are the very broad "SuperView", "Wide", "Linear" and "Narrow". GoPro says that concluding 1 is similar to the view of a phone.

The Max can likewise shoot 270-degree panorama photos and, thank you to its wider lens, it can provide even better stabilisation than the Hero eight Black. GoPro calls the Max the "world's most stabilized Hero", thank you to its Max HyperSmooth mode, which can keeps the horizon completely level for a smoother look.

Permit's not go calling this a clean sweep for the Max, though.

Both cameras apply 12-megapixel sensors, but let's consider how much of this sensor is actually used when you shoot at a standard action camera mode field of view. The closer this is to the lens's own view, the more of the sensor is actually used.

And the more sensor surface area involved, the more than likely we are to see good performance in lower lite, and better-realised fine detail. Y'all'll take to wait for our full review to cheque this theory out, but the Hero eight Blackness should still be the best choice from an image quality purist perspective.

GoPro Hero 8 Black vs GoPro Max — Features

What else tin can these action cameras do? Both tin can livestream video at 1080p resolution. 720p and 480p resolutions were your choices in the Hero 7 Black.

They have slo-mo upwardly to 8x (240fps, 1080p) and custom capture presets that let you lot prepare dissimilar parameters for different occasions for quick access. You lot as well get TimeWarp. This is GoPro's stabilised timelapse video, which offers some very neat professional-looking results.

Related: GoPro Max Review

The Hero 8 Black as well has LiveBurst. This captures one.5 seconds of 4K video footage before yous press the shutter push button and another 1.5 seconds afterwards, giving you a iii-second prune for easy sharing online.

GoPro Hero 8 Black vs GoPro Max – Early verdict

The GoPro Max is a bigger footstep frontward than the Hero 8 Black in its respective series. A screen, reduced size and lower starting cost make this a better alternative to the standard Hero than the Fusion was at launch back in 2017.

But is it really amend? The pocket-sized size of the GoPro Hero eight Black is withal of import, and thanks to the physics of camera sensors you lot're likely to get better video quality at the fields of view these cameras share.

However, that the Max has significantly better sound quality and doesn't cost that much more should make many consider the move to a 360-degree cam.