GoPro 12 has some upgrades.  But this is probably the least incremental upgrade in a long time.  It is more like a GoPro 11S.  Or GoPro 11.5.  The only real tangible difference is the ability to use the Lens Mod in 4K.  At least that’s the only thing that makes me consider buying it. HDR video feature is neat for the environment shots but people look worse than GoPro 11.  I thought maybe the portable cam market has peaked but boy was I wrong.

Here is the thing about this space.  The competitors not only have caught up to GoPro, and have exceeded it.  Let’s take a look.

DJI OSMO Action 4
Osmo Action cam looks like a GoPro and every year it has caught up to GoPro.  This year is no exception.  To me, the most appealing thing about Osmo Action 4 compared to the GoPro is the larger sensor.  GoPro has long held the same size sensor but Osmo uses a larger one.  Which is capable of better low light videos.  I don’t know why GoPro insists we all use action cams only in bright daylight but that is simply not true.

Insta360 Ace Pro
Only a few months after the GoPro 12 release and Insta360 company has released a new action cam that, imo, innovated above it. It uses AI in ways you’d expect, and not expect.  It uses AI to create weird effects which I think is more of a marketing gimmick.  However, the part that gets me is the use of AI to run the hardware.  It has a larger sensor and faster processing than the GoPro 12.  And it takes maximum advantage of it by letting AI push its limits.  Low light performance is greatly enhanced by the software and the hardware being controlled by AI to really process the image to be natural and bright.  

DJI OSMO Pocket 3
This is not an action cam but I think it is still relevant to a large portion of GoPro’s market.  It has the largest sensor of them all and has a builtin mechanical gimbal.  It has the most natural fluid motion out of all of them.  It also has wireless microphone capability and easy filter placements.  The only deal-breaker level downfall is that it is not weather resistant or shock resistant like action cams are.  It is not even a little bit weather resistant.  For example, the micro sd card has no cover/lid/door so is completely exposed to the elements.

Conclusion
With these companies advancing the space so much, GoPro 12 just seems… boring.  Especially when it is so much like GoPro 11.  I will do a review on each of these products but for now, the competitors win.

If you have a tablet already, you might be wondering if an Amazon Kindle is worth its investment.  Well, no one can really make that decision for you but in my opinion, it is a worthy one indeed.

They are cheap
They are about the only tablets that go for less. You can get a decent one for about $100.  There are fancier ones like the waterproof ones but basics work just as well.  

Screen is amazing!  In its own way
Kindles use a different kind of screen called an e-ink display.  Unlike a normal screen, it make it look and feel like paper.  The text looks close to an ink on paper as it gets.  This is a totally different experience and something that wow’d me.  There are several advantages to this. First, it doesn’t fatigue your eyes nearly as much, if at all.  It is very much like staring at a paper because it has no glowing components like normals screens have.  Second, if you read at night, it won’t blind you when it loads.  You don’t have to go into dark mode either because of the screen since it doesn’t glow.  It does light up gently for reading in the dark.  This is nowhere near those backlit LED stuff on your tablets.

They are light
The weight is nowhere near your tablets.  Since it doesn’t require heavy duty components to do a lot of computation, you’ll forget you had one in your bag.

Battery lasts forever
You can use these things for weeks.  Yes WEEKS!  Not days.  Not hours.  This is important because you are almost never in a race against time.  If you are a traveler, the advantages are obvious.

Carry all your books
Here we come to the main advantage that is also a disadvantage of the Kindle: the ability to download and carry many books at once.  A tradeoff is made to make this happen.  Mainly, the physical book feel and the inability to resell your books. Books take up a lot of space and paper is heavy.  In the modern world, it is advantageous to view a book on a device.  It’ll never duplicate the experience of a real book but a Kindle comes as close as a device can. 

As a camper, I find great value in a device like the Kindle that is above any tablet I have ever used.

To learn Da Vinci, I spent hours editing a video on it.  Initially I was very impressed with it.  I was quite giggly and was so excited for it.  It was buggy here and there but nothing to complain about. Well, except one.  Despite having an M2 iPad, my 4K timeline with just one layer of footage was very laggy.  It was like the old Premiere Pro days where you pressed the space bar and 5 seconds later it would respond.  Or not respond at all.  The videos were choppy despite it being an action cam footage and playing perfectly fine in other apps.  But still, no biggy!  That is until it became big.  Da Vinci crashed and my project was no longer able to open.  I tried several things to make it work but to no avail.  I was completely speechless!  If this was a real project and I spent hours on it, I’d be in real trouble.  I looked through the forums but this is a new software so most of the results were related to the desktop version and not the iPad one.  I decided to call it a night and try again in the morning with a fresh mind.  The next morning, I restarted my iPad for good measure and opened up Da Vinci.  To my horror, the project file itself was gone!  I looked everywhere for it including the Files app but it disappeared entirely.  I was genuinely horrified.  In one of the troubleshooting attempts, I have made a duplicate copy so I tried to restore from there.  Every time I opened it, it crashed the app.  So now I have a project file I cannot open.  Again, internet search turned up no results.  I copied all the files to the desktop and it works on Da Vinci Resolve desktop version.  I had to relink all the media manually but it worked fine on desktop.  

Look, an app could be professional all it wants but to lose an entire project is unacceptable.  After a few update iterations, I decided to give it a try again.  Hoping it would be more stable.  Well this time, everything worked right up until exporting.  It just said, “Failed.”  It refused to render.  I tried everything I could think of but it didn’t really give me any info to go off of. 

So Da Vinci became totally useless cause only after I finish or nearly finish a project, it won’t let me do anything.  Again, unacceptable for a pro app.  And remember that the performance was also an issue which I was willing to overlook.

So far, iPad M2 has been a disappointment.  Laptop replacement?  Not even close.  Da Vinci has a free version and a paid version.  I will wait long before I even consider paying for this.  Hope they resolve the reliability issue soon.

There is a lot to like about the Samsung Galaxy Flip 5.  I got this phone as my second line since it was free with a trade-in.  I got some time to spend with it and as cool as it is, I have some thoughts.

First the good.  The flip feature is pretty darn cool and it is actually quite usable.  There is a crease on the screen where it folds but you quickly end up not even noticing it.  Once closed, it reminds me of an iPod or any of those old-school music players.  You can control your music while closed full with album art.  It fits into smaller sized pockets but that is debatable.  It is thicker so it might feel bulkier when folded.  My favorite feature is that it allows you to take photos when closed.  This means finally you get to use the best camera for selfies and videos.  Since you have a screen and it is using the best lens available, you get a much higher quality selfie and video.  Other than that, it is pretty standard android phone…. with some minuses.

Too bad Samsung’s screen once it is folded is very limited in function.  It is worthless really.  Makes one regret not getting the Motorola RAZR flip phone because you can do many things with the screen.  Speaking of the screen, remember how I said you get to use the best camera for selfies with the phone closed?  Well, it is true but they put a mediocre camera in the Flip5.  It takes good pictures but the quality is outdated.  Especially when you compare to the S23 lineup of phones.  I feel my iPhone 12 ProMax takes better photos than the Flip5.  So the quality bump is marginal even when using the best camera for selfies.  The phone also does not flip well so it won’t satisfy your fidgety needs.

So awesome idea that … should’ve worked but didn’t because it was limited to fairly watered down features.  Nothing on this phone is the best or top of the line anything.  

DJI’s Mini 4 Pro is what the 3 Pro should be