DJI action 3 or the GoPro Hero 11 take 2. in full disclosure DJI saw my original hero 11 vs action 3
comparison video and reached out and asked if they could sponsor a new comparison video I said yes so
they sent me the adventure combo with the action 3 but I also went out and purchased another action 3
at Best Buy just to make sure that the issues that I had complained about in my original comparison
video were fixed now as with any camera equipment purchase much of it is going to come down to your
personal needs and what you are going to use it for so I'll do my best to break down all the
differences between these two cameras because there are a lot and likely it will make one
of them a better camera for you over the other so we're going to jump into comparing footage
when it comes down to the footage the GoPro Hero 11 shoots up to 5.3 K up to 60 frames a second
4K up to 120 frames a second and Full HD or up to 2.7 K in 240 frames a second and it also takes 27
megapixel Stills the action 3 on the other hand will shoot 4 4K up to 120 frames a second full
HD or 1080p up to 240 frames a second and will take up to 12 megapixel Stills so straight out of
camera both of these are shooting in Auto profiles every across the board and in normal color profile
now that's not the 10-bit color profile on the action 3 we'll get into that in a minute but this
is what both cameras look like when they're in a normal color profile being shot at 4K 60 in Auto
modes obviously there's some coloring differences between the two and I gotta say overall I think I
slightly prefer the action 3 colors in general in normal color profile I just feel like they're a
little bit more natural looking and a little bit more true to what I was seeing in person there
but both of these cameras will also shoot in log which is where 10-bit comes in in the action 3
since DJI released that firmware update which does give it more dynamic range the action 3
actually does a really good job shooting in 10-bit D cine like here you can color grade quite a bit
the GoPro is also being shot in their flat color profile which is essentially their version of log
and uh both of these do color grade fairly well I mean they're still action cameras but they do
a pretty good job overall now while the action 3 may not have the same amount of resolution
as far as shooting like up to 5.3 K like the GoPro does it does have a couple of other modes that are
actually really nice it has HDR mode which gives you much more extended dynamic range and actually
makes things look pretty good or maybe a Touch Too vibrant but they do look really good and it does
give you a lot more dynamic range and then they also have something called enhanced image quality
which is what you're seeing here which the action 3 basically analyzes all the information coming
in and adjusts all of the camera settings based on what is coming in in the moment in real time
so it gives you the absolute best image quality that it can I found both of these modes to be
pretty nice I would have to say the enhanced image quality is a little bit more to my taste as far as
looking natural and right but the HDR quality is actually pretty good as well then we come to low
light performance now no small action camera is going to give you great low light performance so
here you can see a few different examples from ISO 100 all the way up to ISO 6400 and I'll
let you decide which one wins to me they're both pretty much the same there's definitely a little
more noise in the action three than the GoPro but that looks like because the GoPro is handling some
sort of noise reduction a little more and to me the image looks like it gets a little more soft
a little earlier on but honestly it's six and one half dozen again no action camera is going to give
you amazing low low light performance I covered stabilization a lot and not much has changed
both of these cameras will stabilize your footage really well and kind of regardless of what you're
doing you get this almost bizarre gimbal-like effect of each out of each one of these cameras
but there's another way that the action 3 will beat out the GoPro and that's with uh the angle
of view you can get a much wider angle of view on the action 3 than you can the GoPro now the
GoPro does speed out the action 3 and the fact that you can rotate it 360 degrees and it will
keep the Horizon level where the action 3 is limited to what they say is 45 degrees but I
found it to be a little bit more than that on each side just kind of depends or it seems to depend on
the subject material you're filming the other thing the action 3 can do that the GoPro can't
is zoom in digitally and it actually keeps image quality pretty decently when you can zoom in up to
three times so it gives you a lot more field of view options on how you want to use this camera
to compose your shot in my testing of both of these cameras the action 3 has significantly
better battery life it has signifi efficiently better cold weather handling and from what I've
seen I've been able to test it personally it does can significantly better at overheating on longer
run time so if you're planning on recording long sessions where you're going to let the camera roll
for quite a while the action 3 definitely wins it also has much better battery life in cold weather
and I've tested that pretty extensively over the last few months here in Alaska it uh yeah
the batteries on this last quite a while in the day that I went and shot both of these together
um it was up for about three hours two and a half three hours turning the cameras on and off
you know shooting various frame rates and stuff like that and the GoPro lost about 30 percent
battery or 30 percent it lost battery life about 30 percent faster than the action 3 did so while
I went through about one and a half batteries on the action three I went through two full
batteries and and basically started into my third on the GoPro Hero 11 in order to keep up and do
all the shooting that I wanted to do so if you're looking for long run times and in cold weather or
from what I've seen in hotter weather the action 3 definitely wins out whatever DJI has done with
their thermal management they've done a fantastic job at being able to keep this thing running much
longer and yes I was using these Enduro batteries from GoPro which are GoPros cold weather batteries
and while they are significantly better than the blue batteries that GoPro used to sell they
they come at an extra cost and they still don't match up to the action 3 runtime or performance
in cold weather hey if you're enjoying this video then consider subscribing I do lots of filmmaking
equipment reviews here in Alaska and I give you tips and tutorials on how to use them so you can
tell better stories something that DJI has done that GoPro has not done that really makes the
action 3 a fantastic action camera is give you a lot of options for audio not only are there
multiple mics on the camera and you can select if you want to use just the front microphone so if
your vlog talking you know holding the camera out like this talking to it then you're only getting
audio from the front of the camera not from the back but you can also do it in Stereo you can
also do all around uh it just gives you a lot of options whereas the GoPro you don't get the
option now it does have a microphone in front and the camera is supposed to intelligently sort of
Select where the sound source is coming from but you don't have any control over that but a huge
way the action 3 really wins over the GoPro is the fact that you can use pretty much any sort of USB
audio Source USBC audio Source in the camera you open up the flap here and if you have the
DJI wireless mic you can plug the wireless mic directly into the side of the camera you have a
really clean sounding wireless audio system from the action 3 which makes it great especially if
you operate in areas where there might be a lot of wind or uh you know you might want to get further
away from the camera than just handheld like this I've also tested it with this USBC lapel mic from
Sennheiser it also works with that and just for fun I decided to try it with my rode ntg coming
out of the USBC port in the rode ntg and plugging it into the action 3 and it also worked with that
so if you want to get better higher quality external audio sources the action 3 beats the
GoPro by far to get any external audio sources into the GoPro you have to buy the 80 79 media
mod which gives you a 3.5 millimeter input that is a huge deal the fact that you can plug a wireless
mic system directly into this or the rodent TG directly into this or a lapel directly into this
and you don't have to buy any extra mods is a huge huge Advantage the action 3 has over GoPro
then we come to usability and there is something that's pretty significant that I didn't touch on
on my initial review now both of them have touch screens that are fairly fast and fairly responsive
uh how you get around things is you know um basically touching stuff they both work well
they uh you know respond well and I do like that GoPro has these kind of quick selection buttons
here where you can change your field of view and stuff like that basically built in right there
ready to go you can turn hyper smooth on or off depending on what you want um it just it you can
do it there you can go through these kind of quick program modes here which is pretty nice the action
3 takes a slightly different approach but also sort of a similar approach it's you can change
your frame rates right there which I really like you can swipe down to get into your menus you can
set up a bunch of modes for quick switching between stuff and then you can just use the
button on the side to Quick switch between modes that you commonly use so I just have video and
photo set up right now makes it fairly fast and intuitive and then of course you can get into your
deeper menus if you really want to go into like preferences stuff like that you get playback all
of that really easy you can set up your stuff here you can leave it in basically where it
does everything automatically or in Pro mode which is where I shot everything in but the other
way the action 3 has a big advantage over the GoPro is the front screen is also a touch screen
so now only one touch screen is active at a time so now that I swiped up just the front screen is
active as a touch screen but same thing you can change all of your settings right there you can
get into your preferences right there I mean it's just really handy now it doesn't seem like a big
deal but if you're putting this on a helmet where you only really can see the front screen or you're
putting this on an fpv drone where the battery is up against the back screen and you can only
see the front screen it makes it really nice to be able to adjust settings from the front side of the
camera rather than having to pull it off and set it up so I'd say while the menus are different set
up differently and both of them are very intuitive I think DJI might win out just because of this
front touch screen that they've included in the action 3. it's much more useful than I originally
thought it would be but another way to test and tell is how fast each one of them turn on so here
you can see when they're both completely off if I just push the record button they should turn on
and start recording and the action 3 beats out the GoPro by a full second maybe a second and
a half and again if I do it again it's the same thing and I've tested this a lot of
times where and every single time the action 3 is quite a bit faster than the GoPro Hero
11. another thing I like about the action is when you turn this on and you hit the button
to turn it off if you tap the screen right there it will stay on now it doesn't seem like a big
deal but the amount of times that I've started recording with the GoPro and realized that a
setting is wrong or I want to change something about it I push stop recording it Powers off I
then have to power the camera back on in order to get into the settings and be able to change stuff
so that's a lot of extra time uh it doesn't seem like that big a deal but again it's just extra
time so the action 3 really does win out in that those those couple little things that they added
in there are really nice and in that vein of usability the action 3 is a bit smaller than
the GoPro Hero 11 both uh top to bottom and then um you know front to back they're they're just a
little bit different they're a little bit smaller while the GoPro has this Twist on front here uh
kind of twist on lock front for ND filters the action 3 basically it screws on and off
so I feel like that's you know pretty good both of them are waterproof uh to a limit without an
extra cage there's another way that I've been sort of on and off about the magnetic mounts that the
action 3 uses I wasn't a huge fan of them like I liked it but it wasn't my favorite because I
don't feel like it's as secure as the fingers uh the GoPro has on the bottom but in a recent ice
climbing trip with um Ice Climbers switching this camera between my fpb drone a helmet Mount and a
selfie stick having this sort of Mount was super invaluable because it made me made it so that I
could switch cameras between different mounts super fast and super easy because it's just
like that so I have one of these on my fpv drone I had the one on the selfie stick and then I had
one on the helmet camera or the helmet mount and I could swap this within seconds and be ready to go
that makes a huge difference now the fingers are the most secure so if you're going to strap this
to the outside of a car going 90 miles an hour 100 miles an hour or put it on the outside of
an airplane or a helicopter like I've done before with the GoPro you're going to want a cage that
has fingers that is very secure I wouldn't trust the magnets to do that that being said they're
pretty strong and I did and I have flown this on my fpv drone using nothing but the magnetic Mount
or the magnetic clip attachment and it's held on and been fine and then we come down to price and
that is a huge determining factor for most people the action 3 comes in at a base of 330 dollars
where the GoPro comes in at 500 unless you do the GoPro subscription plan or you might find
it on sale you know prices are always fluctuating and stuff like that so you might maybe 450 440 or
something like that but there's another way that the action 3 definitely wins being that
it's cheaper and it has fantastic performance built in if you get the adventure combo for 430
dollars not only do you get the action three the selfie stick and a couple of magnetic mounts uh
and the cage that comes with it but you also get this battery charging case which you get to three
batteries with a combo anyway but the battery charging case basically lets you know when it's
closed if they're fully charged or depleted so as you're going through your day and you're changing
batteries you don't have to guess about which battery is fully charged and which one is not
and then of course you can charge this via USBC now to get that same level of performance with
GoPro you've you get the GoPro Hero 11 with the battery and then you buy two more batteries with
a charging case which I wouldn't buy anything other than these Enduro batteries after using
them and that's going to run you another what 50 or 60 dollars but then again we also come back to
the fact that if you want to plug external audio into one of these you're gonna have to spend an
additional eighty dollars for the GoPro or with the action 3 you basically have it built right
in via the USBC so which one of these is gonna be right for you like I said earlier is going to be
massively dependent on what you're going to use it for if you're going to plug accessories into
it what your budget is and what your needs are for me the action 3 has been an incredibly well
performing camera in extremely harsh environments and for the price I don't really think you can
beat it it's fantastic now if you need the utmost highest resolution then the GoPro Hero 11 probably
is going to be the direction you're going to go but that's going to come at a cost until then
you're going to watch this video see how other action cameras compare and stack up I'll see
over there as always if you have questions ask me in the comments below or join my live stream
Wednesday nights at 4pm Alaska time 8pm Eastern I'll see you again soon in the next video cheers