GoPro Hero3 Black Edition

I heard the 3 sucked and the 2 was much better. Check the amazon reviews.

Oh yes, I have a lot of experience with the GoPro 3 Black:

I received mine around Jan 10th. I have the 64gb Sandisk Ultra MicroXDHC card, with the suction cup windshield mount and "the frame" accessory to give me access to external power with the 12 volt car adapter. The camera was tested on 1080 / 60, and 2.7k / 30 in loop mode for use as a dash camera. Figured this would basically be the best solution currently on the market... Theoretically it should have been.

So let's get into why I had to return it:

I took a drive from Oakland to Walnut Creek on a relatively cold night, 40 degrees outside, at around 2:00am. The drive takes maybe a half hour with no traffic. About 3/4 of the way there, the camera beeped 3 times. The flashing red record light stopped flashing. It stopped recording. I didn't know what had happened, so I hit the record button again. This time it went for about 10 minutes, and then stopped recording. Repeated at 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, and then it just wouldn't turn on again.

Mind you, it's plugged in. There shouldn't be any power issues.

I tried it again without the external power. Same results. With both external power, and battery power, the camera became EXTREMELY hot to the touch. So hot you wouldn't want to hold it.

I was running the newest firmware... the firmware GoPro SWORE up and down would fix the exact problem I was describing. It did not, and everyone complaining of this problem confirmed the firmware update did not solve the issue.

So after about a week of fucking around with it, I realized that if I didn't get this sent back to the store I bought it from... I would be permanently stuck with a product that should never have been put on the market. After researching GoPro's policy regarding returns and exchanges, it appeared they were being quite difficult with people who had not done the return through their retailer. Some people had gone through 3 or 4 exchanges before they got a camera that actually worked.

Anyway... I'll try them again in a year and hope they've got their problems sorted out.

I was going to get one but the battery life seems crap

I'm still quite satisfied with my Hero2 and didnt see enough new features on the Hero3 to warrant an update and having to replace my underwater housings with custom filters installed and my aircraft gimbal.

Yeah I got the black edition just before Christmas. Excellent video quality, but were i to buy another one, I'd get the silver. The extra cine resolution on the black is useless for me and the remote operating distance sucks.

Yeah, definitely needs 2 batteries for half a day shooting

I love mine, be sure to flash it manually (few times) or you might experience some weird battery drain.
It seems sometimes the WiFi wouldn't turn OFF even when you thought you switched it OFF, for me it caused the GoPro to become hot and drain battery really fast. After a few times of manually flashing the December FW it looks like all problems i had are gone.

I got mine with extra battery bacpack and bacpack touch screen.. works great..
I use the GoPro to do some FPV flying from under a quadcopter.

Picture quality is amazing

I just bought mine about 2 weeks ago...and I love it!
I also bought the ridiculous amount of accessories they sell, haha.

I'll be using it at the Phoenix Forum next week as our 'Hot Girl Party Cam'...then we are taking it on a white water rafting trip near the Grand Canyon.

sounds like what i am going through with my sigma 35mm 1.4 lens i recently got, i'm on my 2nd one and it's somewhere between here and sigmausa on its way to be calibrated for my camera body.

I bought my girlfriend the black edition, with the LCD back, and a bunch of other accessories.

She loves it and has had 0 problems with the camera.

The only issue we have had is, when we were in Colorado this year for boarding, when we put the protective case over it at the bottom of the mountain and reached the top. The altitude had caused the LCD plastic case to expand and contract, essentially ruined, but still usable.

Great camera, I keep the firmware updated and the camera has never had any issues for me.

I have the silver GoPro3, and it is working great on the latest firmware. The interface seems a little buggy, but for me it always works. If you don't need one right away you might want to wait until the next revision as I imagine there will be some bug fixes.