There are various reports about the release date of the GoPro Hero 5, and from what we can tell, GoPro had to put off the release by a while in order to complete their developments properly. Current reports indicate that the device should arrive around October this year, but the company was apparently actually aiming to bring it out earlier than that. By how much exactly, we don’t know – but hopefully, there aren’t any serious difficulties behind the scenes and the company will be able to handle their release as close as possible to their original plans.
From the way the rumors sound, the reason for the delay doesn’t actually have anything to do with problems in the development of the Hero 5, but it’s rather because the company wanted to add a few extra features to the project before bringing it out. Of course, fans immediately started speculating on the nature of those features and the plans of GoPro for their next release, but it’s hard to tell what might be going on behind the doors of the company at the moment.
Some of the rumors talk about interesting features like 8K recording support, as well as better performance and an optimized interface. However, some are skeptical about the potential of introducing 8K video so soon in the line, as the technology could bring about some problems instead of just improving the overall quality.
For example, finer details could actually be compromised in order to capture such a large picture, and there are also concerns about how the battery life of the device could be affected by doubling the recording resolution. The previous GoPro models actually performed quite well in this regard and people were favorable of the devices with regards to their battery life, but if the Hero 5 comes with the same battery capacity this could lead to some problems.
In fact, some are actually skeptical about the battery life of the device specifically, as there are various reports that it will come with a smaller frame size on top of all the other improvements. If that turns out to be true – especially the part where GoPro will reportedly cut down the size of the device by 50% – this could imply some limitations for the size of the battery included in the package. There are other points of view for this though, such as the fact that battery technology is constantly improving and a smaller unit doesn’t necessarily have to imply worse performance, but we’ll have to wait and see the official specifications before we can draw any conclusions.
If everything goes as planned for GoPro though, we could see a very attractive addition to the action camera market with this device. The company has been very progressive in this part of the market, and they alone are responsible for some great recent developments. Because of this, we have confidence that they will be able to take things even further and bring out a device that will stun everyone.
There is a long time to go until October, and the action camera market could change a lot by then. GoPro are also not the only ones active in it, of course, and there are other companies making progress in the development of such devices, but more competition is always great for innovation as we’ve seen in other market niches. GoPro seem to be handling things quite well, all things considered.