Review: GoPro Hero 11 Black

GoPro defined the action camera, and it remains the top pick in our Best Action Cameras guide. But truthfully, I rarely use my GoPro for anything action-related—and according to GoPro, I am not alone. This fits with what I've seen out in the world. Most people you see using GoPros don't have them mounted on a helmet or strapped to their chest.

GoPro's new Hero 11 Black is still every bit the action camera for those who do mount it on a helmet and “bomb the slopes,” as my editor likes to say. (Ed. note: Grind the rail! Shred the gnar!) But it's also a really great, lightweight, and easy-to-use … well, camera.

This latest iteration adds even more user-friendly features, including a new sensor format that makes it easier to shoot vertical video for platforms like TikTok, simplified settings, better battery life, and more.

Photograph: GoPro

Side by side, the only visible difference between last year's Hero 10 Black and this year's Hero 11 Black is the blue number on the side. Otherwise the body is the same, meaning all your accessories, lens filters, mods, and add-ons will work with the Hero 11.

However, unlike the iPhone 14, which requires a magnifying glass to tell it from its predecessor, the Hero 11 Black brings quite a few welcome changes to the Hero line.

The biggest and most obvious change is the new sensor. It's marginally bigger, but only vertically, which gives it an 8:7 aspect ratio. Previous models could shoot in 16:9 and 4:3, but the new 8:7 makes the Hero 11 a better choice for shooting the abomination that is vertical video. It makes life easier for TikTokkers, because you can now shoot in 8:7, crop to vertical for platforms that use that abomination, and also crop to 16:9 for video sharing in a sane and sensible way.

I make fun of vertical video, but I recognize its popularity, and this makes the GoPro an even more useful camera for a wider audience. I don't like it, but I am often compelled to crop things for platforms that require it. And yes, you can just turn your older Hero sideways to shoot vertically, but then that footage isn't usable for anything else.

The larger sensor also allows for what GoPro is calling HyperView, an even wider-angle shot than the SuperView option in the Hero 10. While this is useful in some tight settings—think rock climbing, for instance—the distortion at the corners is extreme.

The other good news with the new sensor is that you can now extract 24.7-megapixel stills from your videos. To me, this is one of the best things about a GoPro—shoot video so you don't miss anything, and then just use the Quik app, or other software, to extract still images out of the video. This is how I manage to get great photos of my kids running around without dropping $2,000 on a super fast, fancy camera.

Photograph: GoPro

If you shoot stills with the GoPro, those images also get a slight quality bump, up to 27 megapixels from 23 in the Hero 10. Far more interesting on the still front, though, is the ability to shoot RAW images in burst mode. Previously, burst was limited to JPEG files. The ability to shoot RAW in this mode gives another option for the scenario above—where you want to end up with a still, but you also want to shoot continuously. Burst mode isn't video, so there's still some chance you'll miss that perfect moment, but that risk is offset somewhat by the advantage of being able to develop a RAW image in RAW editing software.

The video specs are very close to the Hero 10. The Hero 11 can record 5.3K video at up to 60 frames per second, 4K at up to 120 fps, and 2.7K at up to 240 fps if you want to shoot high-res slow-motion clips.

The final hardware change worth noting is that GoPro's longer-lasting Enduro battery, which was sold separately, is now standard in the Hero 11. GoPro claims that the Enduro extends shoot times by 38 percent. In my experience, battery life is ultimately determined by what you're doing. Taking the default use case—shooting 5.3K at 30 frames per second in sunny conditions—I was able to get one hour and 13 minutes of footage. That's much better than the standard battery that came with the Hero 10, which gave up the ghost well before the one hour mark. There are also numerous ways to extend battery life, like turning off Wi-Fi and GPS, or enabling Extended Battery Mode, which limits your video quality. But hey, it's better to get the footage at 5.3K 30 fps than miss it because shooting at 60 fps killed your battery.

The biggest news in the software department is the Hero 11's new option to shoot in 10-bit color. Shooting in 10-bit color gives you greater dynamic range when you shoot in a flat color profile and do all your color toning in postproduction. In other words, 10-bit color is most useful to those who love to edit video and fine-tune their color toning in their postproduction workflows.

Photograph: Scott Gilbertson

As somehow who largely dreads postproduction video editing, I was far more excited about some of the other new software-based features in the Hero 11 Black, especially the Star Trails feature. If you've ever tried shooting star trails before, you know how laborious it is to stack hundreds of images, so this will probably blow your mind: The Hero 11 can shoot perfect star trail video with a single press of a button. Again, the ability to pull out a 24 megapixel still comes in handy. 

Other new software modes include a Light Painting mode if you want to have some fun with a flashlight, and a Vehicle Light Trails mode to easily turn nighttime car lights into rivers of white and red.

In keeping with the idea of less work for the user, there are now two modes available in the GoPro: Easy and Pro. The camera ships in Easy mode, which offers a streamlined interface for those who aren't going to wade deep into the GoPro's color settings and other fine-tuning details. If you are a pro, or are just used to the old UI, it's, um, easy to switch to Pro, which is the familiar GoPro interface.

Another nice feature that isn't directly related to the Hero 11 (in fact, it works with all GoPros going back the Hero 5) is more control over Auto Highlights video. You do need to be a GoPro subscriber, and you have to turn on Auto Upload. 

Once you do, the Quik app will automatically generate edits and put them in your Quik app. That much has been around for a while, but GoPro now introduces the ability to edit Auto Highlight video without downloading the source files to your mobile device. You'll end up editing a low-res proxy, but when you export or share to another app it'll send the high-res version. Theoretically this will solve my main gripe with Quik, which is that it's just too much for my phone, but unfortunately this feature was not available to test when I was writing this review.

Alongside the new Hero 11, GoPro is introducing a new camera, the Hero 11 Black Mini ($450), which is a Hero 11 Black in a smaller form factor sans screens. That means there's no way to review your footage and no way to even frame the shot in many cases. (You can pair it with the Quik app and frame that way.) That might sound strange, but for many of GoPro's core use cases—that is, the people that really do strap GoPros to their body and go surfing or climbing or motocross riding—the weight savings and streamlined form factor trump screens. You can't see a screen anyway, when it's on your head. 

There's another aspect I like about the Mini, though. A while back, Leica released a digital rangefinder with no screen. That is, there is no way to review your images. The Leica was impractically expensive, but I rather liked the message behind it: Just shoot. Stop checking to see if you “got the shot.” The Hero 11 Mini reminds me of that ethos. As GoPro's head of product pointed out to me, it's not the kind of camera that forces you to sit at a distance and shoot your kids party, not in the moment at all. Rather, you stick it in the corner, push record, and go back to living.

All that said, I did not actually test the Hero 11 Mini. I still think that, for most people, the Hero 11 Black is the best action camera to buy. If you have the Hero 10, is it worth upgrading? That depends on whether or not you need the extra vertical space in your shots. If you're constantly editing video down to different formats, then the Hero 11 is definitely worth the investment.