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The GoPro Hero5 shares many video and photo specs with its predecessor, but it introduces a handful of new features that set it apart. While none of these additions alone revolutionize the action camera market, together they create a meaningful improvement over the Hero4 Black. This section highlights the key new features, while the following sections will explore the camera’s main functions in depth and provide a closer look at how these updates enhance the overall experience.

Fully Waterproof: One of the biggest upgrades is that the GoPro Hero5 Black is now completely waterproof without requiring an extra case, similar to the GoPro Hero4 Session. The exterior even uses a similar rubberized material, giving it that rugged, water-ready feel right out of the box.

A bigger concern, however, is the USB-C/HDMI port cover. This little door detaches when you need to connect the camera to the Karma gimbal or drone, and also whenever you want to charge it.

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The USB-C/HDMI port door stays securely in place thanks to a button-and-slide mechanism, so it won’t pop off accidentally. The real challenge is making sure you don’t misplace it after charging or while the cable is connected. GoPro does sell replacement doors, though they’re a bit pricey. A smart move is to grab an extra and stash it safely in your bag or suitcase when traveling. Trust me—you don’t want to be on a tropical trip, ready to snap amazing underwater shots, only to realize your door is missing.

While we’re on the topic of doors, there’s also the battery compartment underneath. This little hatch houses both the battery and the micro-SD card, keeping your essential components safe and secure.

Touch Display:

The Hero5 builds on the touch display introduced with the Hero4 Silver. If you recall, the Hero4 Black didn’t have a display at all, which is part of why I personally preferred using the Hero4 Silver for everyday shooting over the Black model.

That said, the touch display on the Hero5 feels noticeably different from the one on the Hero4 Silver.

The menu system has been completely redesigned to make navigating settings much more intuitive. Along the bottom of the screen, it displays the key details for the current mode—for instance, in video mode, you can quickly see the resolution and frame rate at a glance.

You can tap the screen to adjust these settings, and only the frame rates available for the chosen resolution will appear. In theory, this system looks great, but in practice it can be a bit tricky. With so many resolutions packed closely together, it’s easy to miss the one you want on the relatively small display.

On the right side of the display, you can access advanced settings for each mode, including options like ProTune, Image Stabilization, and Audio Control.

From the top of the display, you can access general camera settings like WiFi and voice control. On the left, you’ll find the playback section to review the photos and videos you’ve captured. I go over all of this in detail in the video below:

Speaking of a wet display, I found that it doesn’t respond well when it gets wet. If your fingers are wet, the touchscreen can become unresponsive and frustrating to use.

As I mentioned earlier, the new GoPro Hero5 Black touch display looks great in theory, but in practice it could use some fine-tuning. I often found that the small lag and tiny on-screen selectors led to multiple missed attempts when trying to change modes.

Voice Control Features

Similar to the VIRB Ultra 30, GoPro added Voice Control this year. You can simply say, “GoPro, Start Recording,” and it will start filming. The same works for taking photos or switching modes. There’s even a fun trick—if you say a certain expletive that rhymes with “hit,” the camera will mark a highlight. It’s a neat feature that makes hands-free operation surprisingly convenient.

You can toggle this feature on or off, and it supports seven different languages. Plus, if you have the Remo accessory remote, it can accept voice commands too—handy when your camera is out of earshot.

That said, it’s not flawless. I found voice control works well when you’re standing still, but performance drops once you start moving. At around 10 MPH (15 KPH), commands often stop registering, regardless of which way the camera is facing. By comparison, Garmin’s system keeps working at higher speeds as long as the camera is pointing at you.

GoPro offers more voice commands than Garmin, and leaked manuals from August even hinted that it might one day learn custom commands (which hasn’t happened yet—but that would be really cool). In practice, though, Garmin tends to perform better once you’re moving, with fewer failed commands and more consistent responsiveness.

Built-In GPS and Sensors

The Hero5 Black does include GPS, but don’t expect it to track your adventures. Its GPS is mainly there to geotag your photos and videos—basically like Instagram or Facebook, letting you know where a shot was taken. It won’t record GPS tracks while biking, skiing, or surfing, and it won’t show your speed on videos. In short, its use is pretty limited—mostly just labeling your content with a location, like “Taken in NYC.”

This is a big letdown for sports enthusiasts who hoped to overlay metrics like speed or distance directly onto their videos. Despite GoPro acquiring Dashware—the top app for adding these kinds of data overlays—there’s currently no native support for it. For now, the GPS is limited to simple geotagging, with the icon appearing at the top left of the display.

Electronic Image Stabilization, RAW Photos, Advanced Audio Tracks: I’m grouping these three features together—not because they belong in the same category, but because they’re worth highlighting before we dive deeper. These are some of the biggest differences between the Hero5 Black and the Hero5 Session. While the Session includes stabilization, it lacks the new RAW photo mode and the Advanced Audio Track feature, which set the Hero5 Black apart.

I can also make it slightly more casual and conversational, like a reviewer speaking directly to the reader. Do you want me to do that?

Video & Audio details

Ah, video time! There’s no better place to start exploring the Hero5’s features than with its video modes. In many ways, it’s similar to the Hero4 Black, offering 4K at 30FPS and 720P at 240FPS—the two formats most people talk about. The 4K footage looks stunning, no question about it.

So what’s new and worth noting? Let’s start with video stabilization. The Hero5 uses electronic image stabilization (EIS), which works by capturing a slightly larger frame—like 4K—and then smoothing out the motion by cropping the edges, giving you a stabilized clip at up to 2.7K. It’s similar to what Garmin does on the VIRB Ultra 30 (though Garmin tops out at 1440P), but different from Sony’s X3000R, which uses optical image stabilization that doesn’t crop the image at all.

When dealing with light bumps on the road or just hand-holding the camera, image stabilization can make a big difference. The trade-off is a slight reduction in resolution, but if your final video is 1080p, it’s usually worth it. Keep in mind, stabilization works best when much of the scene stays in the same direction. On a helmet mount, where your view constantly shifts, it can get a bit unpredictable.

An even cooler feature is the ability to record each microphone’s audio separately. If you enable ProTune, a new option appears that lets you do this, with three adjustable levels to choose from.

Here are a few quick tests I ran, focusing solely on straight recording times:

1080p 30FPS (Wide): 2 hours 7 minutes 41 seconds with WiFi and GPS off, and 1 hour 50 minutes 52 seconds with WiFi and GPS enabled.

2.7K 30FPS (Wide): 1 hour 45 minutes 5 seconds with WiFi enabled.

4K 30FPS (Wide): 1 hour 31 minutes 10 seconds with WiFi enabled.

All of these tests were done at room temperature, so keep in mind that factors like weather, higher frame rates, or different shooting modes can affect battery life. Still, these numbers give you a good baseline to work from.

Photo Mode Features

The Hero5 Black doesn’t increase resolution over the Hero4 Black, but it does add several photo-focused features. Getting into photo mode is simple: either tap the mode button until you reach “Photos” or just use a voice command to tell the GoPro to snap a picture.

The Hero5 Black also offers different photo modes, including burst shots, timelapse photos, and night photos. Keep in mind that the photo timelapse is separate from the video timelapse—it creates a ton of individual photo files, whereas video timelapse produces just a single video file.

In photo mode, you can adjust both resolution and perspective. Resolution is set at 12MP, while perspective options include Wide, Linear, Medium, and Narrow. The Linear mode is the most notable addition, designed to reduce the fisheye effect common on action cameras. To see how each perspective looks, here’s a sample gallery showcasing the different modes:

Burst mode lets you capture fast action with up to 30 frames per second. You can also set it so those frames are spread out over several seconds, giving you flexibility in how you capture the moment.

Pick the Right GoPro Hero5

So you’re deciding between the Hero5 Black and the Hero5 Session — both are solid options. Let me give you some food for thought to help decide. Just a heads‑up: when I say “Hero5 Session,” I’m referring to the $299 USD version. I’m not talking about the cheaper “Hero Session” (without the “5”), which skips a bunch of features compared to the Hero5 Session.

At a glance, here’s what the Hero5 Black offers that the Hero5 Session doesn’t:

That said, the Hero5 Session still comes with all of these core features:

Those are the main differences. Both cameras are excellent, so you really can’t go wrong with either. Personally, I prefer the Hero5 Black because I like being able to see and frame my shots. With the Hero5 Session, it’s more of a “shoot and hope you got it” approach. Sure, you could use your phone to check shots, but most of us aren’t going to bother.