Top 5: The Best Action Cameras

Do you have an action-packed lifestyle? Do you spend every waking hour doing something so extreme that you just have to share it all with your friends? Then you need an action camera. There are a bunch of different action cameras out there that do a lot of different things, but they all capture video and make it easy to share. Here are the five best action cameras we’ve tested as of July 24, 2015.

Action camera picture via Shutterstock

Gizmodo includes scores (out of 100) on Australian reviews: full ‘How We Rate’ info is available here. That scoring is reflected in this chart, along with scores from a selection of other leading tech sites. In doing so, our goal is to make this meta-chart as useful as possible to you.

Also: Top 5 Wi-Fi Routers

From a huge range of action cameras, we’ve whittled down the list to the five best options available. The results shouldn’t surprise you, to be honest — market leading action camera monster GoPro and Sony, whose action cams are more bullet-shaped, are the two big names to choose from if you want a compact and rugged video recorder that captures clean, detailed video at a range of resolutions and frame rates, and that connects to your smartphone or tablet over Wi-Fi for positioning and settings control. Of course, you can also consider some other excellent models like the ShotBox S71 and the HTC Re. And if you don’t want to spend so much for a GoPro Hero 4, for example, remember that you can always jump back one generation to the Hero 3+ to save money.

Top 5 Chart Click review for more information	84	83	81	78	75
	GoPro Hero 4 Session	Sony Action Cam X1000V	GoPro Hero 4 Black	Sony Action Cam AS100V	GoPro Hero 4 Silver
Scoring Panel
	Gizmodo Australia 86	Gizmodo Australia 85	Gizmodo Australia 82	Gizmodo Australia 80	Gizmodo Australia 80
	DigitalVersus N/A	DigitalVersus N/A	DigitalVersus 80	DigitalVersus 80	DigitalVersus 60
	PCMag N/A	PCMag N/A	PCMag N/A	PCMag 70	PCMag 80
	CNET 80	CNET 80	CNET 80	CNET 80	CNET 80
Key Specs
Maximum Video Resolution	1920x1440p, 40fps	3840x2160p, 30fps	3840x2160p, 30fps	1920x1080p, 60fps	3840x2160p, 15fps
Maximum Photo Resolution	8MP	9MP	12MP	12MP	12MP
Wi-Fi	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dimensions	38x38x38mm	24x52x89mm	41x59x30mm	25x47x82mm	41x59x30mm
Weight	84g	89g	89g	65g	84g