FOR NEARLY TWO years GoPro’s Hero4 Black has been the standard-bearer for action cameras. It can shoot 4K at 30 frames per second, 1080p at a blistering 120fps, and the footage from both looks fantastic. Two years is a long time to be sitting on a throne, though, and it gives potential usurpers ample time to learn your secrets. That’s just what’s happened with the Yi 4K Action Camera.
Same specs as the Hero4 Black but half the cost. Adds a nice touchscreen and better battery life. Works with GoPro accessories.
Entirely unoriginal and it makes you feel bad for buying it. Hard to tell when rolling. Can’t change settings in waterproof housing, and housing is sold separately.
YI
The Yi is almost exactly a GoPro. It looks exactly like a GoPro. Everybody I showed it to thought it was a GoPro. Even the font in its menu system is suspiciously familiar, as is the latch on the waterproof housing. It can shoot at the same high speeds as the Hero4 Black. The pattern of beeps for starting and stopping recording is the same. So what’s the difference? The Hero4 Black costs $500, and the Yi 4K costs $250. But wait, there’s more.
When GoPro made the Hero4 line, it decided that the mid-tier Silver edition would have a touchscreen on the back, but that the top-tier Black edition would not. The Yi 4K basically took the Black edition and put the Silver edition’s screen on it, but it’s larger (2.19 inches versus 1.5 inches), higher resolution (330 pixels per inch), and more responsive than GoPro’s.
The catch is that the Yi 4K has only one button. You tap it to start/stop recording and you hold it to power up/down. If you want to change modes or tweak settings you have to do it through the touchscreen (or paired smartphone app for Android and iOS). This is all fine and good if you’re inside, but the screen is nearly impossible to read if it’s bright out. It also means you can’t change modes or settings if you have it in a waterproof housing. (There’s a workaround for alternating between photo and video, but it’s kind of a pain.)
Speaking of waterproof housing, while that’s included with the GoPro, the Yi’s housing is sold separately (it costs $13 on Amazon). It also doesn’t come with any mounting accessories. The incredibly wide array of mounts is one of the things that makes GoPro the 800-pound gorilla of action cams. How did Yi solves this? Its camera uses the exact same plastic mounting hardware, so you can use virtually any GoPro accessory with it. I would imagine that GoPro’s IP lawyers might have a thing or two to say about that.
The Yi seems to be well made. It’s the same height and depth as a Hero4, but it’s slightly wider than its muse. The extra width made it possible to accommodate a slightly larger battery, and the camera puts it to good use. I did my standard 1080p 30fps battery rundown test. It took the Hero4 Black 1 hour 38 minutes to run out of juice. The Yi? 2 hours 48 minutes! That’s damn good, and considering that wimpy battery life is probably the least favorite thing about the GoPros I use, it’s a big deal. Also, Yi put a standard tripod mount on the bottom of the camera, giving you a way to mount it without any proprietary hardware, which is a nice touch.
Via Wired
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