GoPro Hero Session – Battery Life

Battery life on the GoPro Session is impressive. We managed just over two hours of 1080p recording at 30fps, but opt for 60fps, or a higher resolution, and battery life drops to under two hours.

The Session lasted three hours and 35 minutes on a timelapse set to take 8-megapixel photos once every 10 seconds with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. Not bad at all for such a small action camera.

You do need to consider the temperatures you’ll be using the Hero Session in. In our tests it managed one hour and 20 minutes of 1080p 30fps in conditions of -6 degrees celsius before discharging.

The colder it gets the worse batteries perform, so if you’re planning to use the little GoPro in freezing environments battery life will decrease considerably. That may sound obvious, but it’s even more important to consider with the Session than with some other GoPros. It doesn’t have a removable battery, so once it’s dead you’ll need to recharge it, either using a plug and cable or a portable power bank.

Related: Incredible GoPro videos you need to watch right now

Regardless which you opt for, the flap covering the charging port will need to stay open, so it won’t be waterproof and it won’t fit in certain mounts. You’ll need to wait till it’s charged again, so you’d better get the footage you need while it lasts or consider having more than one Session handy if you’re in hard-to-reach areas.

As the name suggests, though, the Session is designed for quick blasts, or sessions – a blast around a go-kart track or catching a few waves. If you’re planning a base jump after climbing Kilimanjaro (just like we all do) you should consider GoPro’s more traditional action cameras that come with removable batteries.

Figuring out how quickly the Hero Session charges is tricky, because you need to unplug it to see how far along it is. After a few tests we found that it charges fully (from empty) in less than an hour.

Should I buy the GoPro Hero Session?

If you want a tough action camera that’s as small as currently possible, then get your credit card out right now.

For the rest of you the Hero Session is a bit of a luxury. The similarly priced GoPro Hero 4 Silver captures better-quality video, is more water resistant, has a removable battery and an LCD screen. The only area the Session beats it – aside from design and size – is the clarity of audio it records.

Verdict

The GoPro Hero Session is a fantastic feat of engineering – it manages to do so much yet remain so small. However, you might be better off opting for the larger GoPro Hero 4 Silver or Black if size isn’t a primary concern.

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