Just a few weeks after a short instructional video appeared to give us our first look at GoPro’s upcoming Hero 5, a slew of new images have made it onto the internet that appear to show the camera in greater detail. Mashable has rounded them all up, after they were posted to (and subsequently pulled from) Japanese blog Nokishita, as well as camera blog Mirrorless Rumors. In addition, information that appears to be from the Hero 5 manual was posted to Reddit, which hints at what sorts of features users can expect from the company’s next flagship camera.
First of all, the camera looks like it won’t be a huge departure from the design of the Hero 4 and the cameras that came before it. It’s rectangular, and the lens and front-facing screen are situated in the same respective corners. The front power / menu button is missing, but if today’s leak and the one from earlier this month are to be believed the Hero 5 will have a touchscreen, so menu navigation will likely take place there. But it appears that GoPro is applying some design cues from last year’s Hero 4 Session here — the camera’s surface ditches the familiar silver-and-black finish for an all-black rubber look. And, like the Hero 4 Session, the Hero 5 appears to be waterproof out of the box.
The specs appear to be a similar mixed bag of change and familiarity. The information that allegedly comes from the camera’s manual makes it seem like the camera uses the same imaging chip as the Hero 4, or at the very least, the same options for video resolution. That means the highest-quality video mode available would be 4K at 30 frames per second, with modes going all the way down to 720p and frame rates as high as 120 frames per second.
Image stabilization has seemed like a sure bet for the Hero 5 for a while now, and the leaked information points to it being available on all of these shooting modes save for 4K or at frame rates higher than 60 frames per second. GPS also seems to be included, as does voice control. Mirrorless Rumors also says that the battery capacity would get a small bump up to 1,220 mAh. And GoPro could finally be ditching Mini USB in favor of USB Type-C.
Is all this enough to justify the two-year break since GoPro last released a flagship camera? We’ll find out later this year when GoPro is expected to officially unveil the Hero 5. Until then, we’ve reached out to GoPro for comment.
Update August 19th, 2:07PM ET: It appears the camera is cloud-connected and will have some interestingly specific voice controls.