AKASO Brave 7 LE Action Camera, 40M Waterproof Underwater Camera EIS 2.0 Native 4K 20MP Touch Screen WiFi Sports Camera Remote Control Vlog Camera

Got this for my nephew as a gift. He loves making videos and wanted to put it on his bike.The video quality is actually really good especially for the price. i've had and still have gopros and this has better quality than my earlier versions by a long shot. the user interface is good on it. The one downside is he struggles to push the buttons which i must admit are a little stiff. So far he's not broken it and we know with kids they arent exactly gentle creatures. so yeah really impressed.

The first thing you'll notice is that this camera is a lot heavier than some of the other Akaso cameras. It feels robust with its body made of hard plastic and offers weather sealed joints so it can be used in the wet without issue.Both the battery compartment and the USB compartments have a rubber seal which presses into the compartment to ensure no water gets into important parts of the camera.The displays are made from plastic which will no doubt help to stop any screen breaks. The touch screen is smooth and responsive and it's navigation menu is very simple to use.The front facing screen helps to see where it's being pointed while vlogging.Next to the battery compartment there is a 1/4"metal thread for tripods.The buttons feel very strong and are made from a rubbery plastic.Image quality is quite impressive for this price point and the 4k30 is very good as is all of the other resolutions such as 2.7k and 1080p. Just note that every other resolution has a choice of 30fps or 60fps apart from 4k which is limited to 30fps. There is also 1080p120 for slow mo footage.The 20mb max photo quality is reasonable and would be more than good enough for posting on social media. You do get the ability to set custom iso, EV and light metering. Sadly, you're unable to set a custom iso in video mode, but you can set the angle for both video and photo which allows super wide/wide/medium/narrow.Image stabilization is quite impressive, but obviously not to the standards of DJi or GoPro, however you shouldn't have any major issues when cycling or jogging, in fact you'll get very good results.The audio is acceptable, however there is a bug whereby turning off all system sounds will mute audio recording. The work around is to disable all sounds apart from the bootup sound, then you'll be able to capture audio in your recording. If you like to leave system sounds on then obviously you won't need to do this work around.Overall it's a very impressive little camera and it's a nice companion to my DJi Action 2.

Update after more than a year of useThe camera may be old but, after a year of use, I decided to update the review because I actually grew very fond of it.The camera offers an amazing value for money and a rich set of features. The other positive reviews cover the gist. It is very reliable and well made. I never had any issue with it and it survived a couple of hard falls at speed on tarmac. During daylight, the video is clear even at the low resolutions and the colours bright and pleasant. Lots of settings to play with and get the desired results whether it's video, photos or slow mo etc.The killer feature for me were the two batteries and the dual charger. That would give me more than two full hours of solid video recording, which matters to me.It also comes with an extensive set of mounts and adapters covering very different uses. It's also easy to attache it on some gopro mounts which was useful for me as I had a set of 3d printed custom mounts and the transition was seamless.For the record, I had two complains: One was solved after a bit of experimentation and it was that I would often stop the camera unknowingly by touching the screen. I figured out that when you have lock enabled AND start the recording with the button instead works perfectly as it will only stop the recording by pressing the button. The second was that it would lose the date/time when left without batteries an issue. This may be solved by their support, in which case I will update.Finally, the communications I had with the company regarding had been top quality indicative of a top notch support.

The first thing I noticed is how solid it is being made of high quality materials and not cheap flimsy plastic. It has a decent bit of weight for such a small camera as well.I charged the batteries, put one in with an Akaso 64gb micro SD card.Video quality is very good with several effects that you can select - normal, warm, natural, brightness contrast, black and white, and negative. I particularly like the brightness contrast with it's saturated colours and increased contrast.The stabilisation is not quite as good as GoPro but it's still fairly good. The internal microphone records at a slightly lower volume than I would like but it isn't a problem for me. I have purchased the akaso lavalier external microphone and will test it out when it arrives. Photographs are good and will be more than decent enough for me.The on/off button is - I think intentionally - quite stiff and you need to press and hold. This will prevent accidental power on incidents.The menu system is easy to get used to with a mode button to the left of the record button.I should also say that the akaso app is excellent once you have paired with the brave 7 le. The initial pairing took a few attempts - probably my fault - but no problems afterwards when I connect to the camera. The app works very well for downloading to my pixel 8 pro.At this price you are getting a great action camera.