The GoPro Hero 13 Black action camera is likely to arrive later this year, with an annual release cycle having been a core part of GoPro’s scheduling strategy since 2016.
Fans are hoping for a bigger upgrade this year than last and we don’t blame them. The GoPro Hero 12 Black is a great action camera, but its changes over the Hero 11 Black are more to do with software enhancements and efficiencies than hardware innovation.
There’s a lot of competition from rivals Insta360 and DJI too. The Insta360 Ace Pro and DJI Osmo Action 4 provide better lower-light performance and have larger sensors. It’s time for GoPro to catch up, then – but can it do that with the Hero 13 Black?
Will GoPro once again stake its claim as the king of action cameras? Here’s what we know about the GoPro Hero 13 Black so far…
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The likely Hero 13 Black will be GoPro’s flagship action camera
- When is it out? Probably September 2024
- How much will it cost? Likely around $449 / £499 / AU$799
The GoPro Hero 13 Black is likely to launch in September 2024. It’s the time of year when GoPro usually announces its next-generation flagship action cameras.
GoPro’s mainline Hero cameras have all launched in September, since 2017. The last one that didn’t was the GoPro Hero 5 Black, and that only just slipped into October, surfacing on October 2.
An annual release cycle makes continuous dramatic improvements tricky to deliver; but GoPro needs them this year, with serious competition from the likes of Insta360, which used to be a relative also-ran in the action-cam stakes but has upped its game dramatically in the last couple of years.
The key battlefield: lower-light shooting.
GoPro Hero 13 Black: news and leaks
There have been almost no leaks or strongly sourced rumors about the GoPro Hero 13 Black to date. The juiciest nugget was revealed by GoPro’s own CEO Nick Woodman as part of an investor call presentation.
“We plan to launch four new camera SKUs, giving us a lineup of cutting-edge, industry-leading cameras ranging in price from a volume-driving $199 up to $599, with more planned for 2025,” Woodman said of the 2024 lineup.
There was no direct mention of the Hero 13 Black. But GoPro’s plan is an additive one, of introducing new models as well as the mainline Black series. Future models are expected to include a budget camera, a GoPro Max 2 and – in 2025 – a motorbike helmet with integrated camera.
With so little to go on we’ll have to rely on a combination of what we want to see in the GoPro Hero 13 Black, and what we think is possible. Here’s that list…
1. GoPro GP3 processor
GoPro has used the GP2 processor in its cameras for three generations now, since 2021. It’s time for a refresh.
The company never makes a huge amount of fuss about the raw specs of its processors, but teardowns have shown us that the current GoPro GP2 is a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU. Since then, we’ve seen newer designs as part of the ‘efficiency’ cores in phones, the Cortex-A510 from 2021 and then the smaller Cortex-A520 from 2023, which was further enhanced in 2024 under the same name.
Is this tech babble really all that helpful though? Well, it shows us that there are multiple generations of more effective and efficient hardware cores that could (and probably should) power the GoPro GP3.
The very latest design, announced in May 2024, is a 3nm chip; GoPro’s GP2 is a 10nm chip, and more advanced architectures should, in theory, be more power-efficient.
This would give GoPro more scope to balance smarter image processing with battery life and heat generation, and the latter should help when it comes to prolonged shooting in warmer environments, which can be an issue with the Hero 12 Black.
2. A larger sensor
The Hero 12 Black has a 1/1.9-inch sensor, the Sony IMX 677L. This is a larger version of the IMX677 that GoPro cameras have used since 2020, and GoPro has used sensors from the same family for more than a decade.
Is it time for another upgrade? We’d like to think so. Without one, improvements in image quality will rest on software alone, which isn’t ideal.
The GoPro Hero 12 Black already largely maxes-out on the sensor readout of the IMX677L too. It has no scope for 120fps at 5.7k, or beyond 120fps at 4K – and you’d need a much higher-resolution sensor for 8K capture.
For those interested, here’s the family history of GoPro sensors for the last decade and change:
Hero 12 Black: IMX677L
Hero 11 Black: IMX677L
Hero 10 Black: IMX677
Hero 9 Black: IMX677
Hero 8 Black: IMX277
Hero 7 Black: IMX277
Hero 6 Black: IMX277
Hero 5 Black: IMX117
Hero 4 Black: IMX117
Hero 3 Black: IMX117
An obvious candidate would be something like the Sony IMX877 or IMX977. But, to the best of our knowledge, no such sensor exists. That said, there are many Sony sensors in existence that haven’t been splashed over the Sony Semiconductor Solutions Group website.
As we’ll cover later, the key ask of a new GoPro sensor from Sony is not so much resolution as size, unless you’re hankering after an 8K mode. Key rivals the DJI Action 4 and Insta360 Ace Pro have significantly larger 1/1.3-inch sensors.
3. The return of GPS
GoPro removed, or at least disabled, GPS in the GoPro Hero 12 Black. The official line was that it had a significant impact on battery life and, despite GoPro’s advice, users weren’t taking the initiative and switching it off.
This feels more like a UX (user experience) failure than a hardware one, though. The internet is peppered with people complaining about the lack of GPS in the Hero 12 Black, even if that doesn’t necessarily make it a worse action camera.
4. Better low-light performance
Limited low-light performance is an issue with every mainstream action camera, particularly GoPros. These things have small sensors, which puts a cap on their native sensitivity.
But we don’t want a much larger GoPro – so what else might help? The smartphone route is to use smarter, more intensive processing and setting. It’s nowhere near as effective as it can be in photography, though, thanks to the small window available to process the image.
One possible ray of light is a new sensor design that Sony has shown off in its latest sensors made for phones, dubbed LYTIA.
These use a stacked dual-layer design, in order to improve native sensitivity per square inch. A partnership with OPPO put them under the spotlight in 2023, with the key benefit being a larger photodiode.
Sony says its 1/1.4-inch LYT800 sensor rivals the quality of a 1-inch sensor, while being significantly smaller – and that could be just what the GoPro Hero 13 Black needs. The LYT700, LYT800 and LYT900 sensors that Sony Semiconductor Solutions has expounded upon publicly may not necessarily have the ideal shape and specs for GoPro (although they’re not far off), but another custom design may already exist behind the scenes.
Insta360 has already shown the way here, with its Ace Pro and PureVideo mode, which produces much better-looking night footage than the GoPro 12 Black. We don’t know what sensor that camera uses, but Insta360 does credit a “5nm AI chip,” suggesting backroom image processing is a big part of the equation. GoPro needs to at least match Insta360 here in the Hero 13 Black.
5. Longer battery life
Increased battery life was one of the main upgrades in the Hero 12 Black. However, GoPro got there by reducing the bitrate of certain capture modes, which also led to some users claiming that you could get the key improvements with a simple firmware update for the Hero 11 Black.
A GoPro Hero 13 Black processor with a more advanced processor architecture could help to increase longevity further. However, a 2023 blog by an engineer who claims to have worked on one of TomTom’s old action cameras suggests there may be plenty more ways to improve efficiency.
“I strongly believe that GoPro has not yet focused on software power management enough,” wrote Renjith Thomas ahead of the release of the GoPro Hero 11 Black.
“There are a lot of small tweaks collectively contributing to even more power savings,” he said of his work on TomTom’s camera. The whole thing is worth a read if you want to know about the factors that can severely impact stamina in these kinds of devices.
6. 8K video: the red herring?
GoPro may choose to implement 8K video in the Hero 13 Black, because Insta360 has in the Ace Pro. But should it?
At this stage we can only expect 8K video to be recorded at a maximum of 30fps, which isn’t ideal for action-camera use – and in the Insta360 it rules out the use of HDR processing. Over the next few years HDR optimization is likely to only become more important in GoPros; blown-out clouds are never a good look.
8K is also a lot to expect of a camera with these small sensors and lenses. The ability to resolve meaningful detail is determined by more than just sensor resolution, and the GoPro Hero 13 Black needs better 4K more than it does 8K.
But would it be useful for the Hero 13 Black marketing, and something we’d look forward to trying out? Absolutely.
To achieve this, the next GoPro will need at least a 48MP sensor, or at least a 52MP one if it were to use another 8:7 aspect-ratio sensor. And even at that resolution, we’d be looking at a stabilization-free picture at that resolution, thanks to the way software stabilization works.
7. A flip-up OLED screen
Here’s one way for GoPro to give the Black series a conspicuous design refresh: a vlog-friendly flip-up screen. The company significantly took the heat out of the demand for such a feature in 2020, when the Hero 9 Black got a color front screen.
A larger flip display of a more suitable aspect ratio would make shot composition a lot easier, though. In an ideal world it might use an OLED panel with the kind of ultra-high brightness seen on phones and smartwatches.
Bright OLEDs are common, and seemingly not that expensive. The confounding factor here is that the Hero 13 Black would need a display somewhere in the region of 2.3 inches – and that’s not a display size seen on phones, wearables, or other mass-produced consumer tech, which is what you want in order to keep component costs down.
Is this one likely? Perhaps not. But we would like to see a new and improved version of GoPro’s Screen Mod, which provides an add-on vlog screen, but has been around since 2020.
GoPro Hero 13 Black: 8K video: outlook
It’s a relatively blank canvas when it comes to what we know about the GoPro Hero 13 Black right now, one that we action-camera fans are going to end up filling with our hopes and dreams. Fingers crossed, right?
GoPro knows what it’s doing, though, and given that we’re in AI silly season in tech right now, it feels right for the company to at least try to use it in order to improve the Hero Black series’ low-light shooting.
Whether that might be further enhanced by new core hardware – and we hope it will – is one for the future.
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