GoPro HD Hero3 White vs Sony HDR-AS10
Tuesday, January 1, 2013 at 12:19PM 
This the longest and most expensive review I've made so far. With a budget of over £300 and a running length of just over 40 minutes you might (justifiably) assume that I've been able to cover all the features of these two cameras in great depth, but unfortunately that's not the case. Notable by their absence from this video is any examination of the stills capabilities of either camera, 720p60 tests or a demonstration of the playback functions over HDMI.
With so many things missing I think I will need to make a follow-up video about these cameras but I'll save the 720p60 tests until I can get some more suitable weather for going out on the bike……so don't hold your breath.
The heavily discounted Sony that I bought seems to be the result of a product being canned just before it came to market and therefore ending up in the hands of ebay close-out sellers. The Sony HDR-AS10 is the HDR-AS15 minus the WiFi, a feature that I don't really need or miss. With an action camera the whole idea is that the lens is wide enough to capture everything without the need for accurate framing. The WiFi function merely gives you the viewfinder that you never wanted together with an ability to share files wirelessly. The Sony has a 170º Lens, meaning that virtually everything in front of the camera is in shot, so no need for a viewfinder.
The biggest problem with the Sony surrounds the mounts, not only the lack of choice but also the shape and design of the supplied case. The fact that it completely blocks off the microphone, can't be tilted up or down, can't be mounted to the side of things, but is also too long and tall to be mounted on the top of a helmet means that the Sony ultimately fails as an action cam. I will be experimenting with finding some way to attach the camera to my bike helmet whilst also recording sound through the mic-in socket…. but I'm really more interested in using this as a general purpose mini camera. For example when I was shooting another review over Christmas it turned out to be the most suitable camera I owned for filming inside the cramped interior of the car when I needed to demonstrate how a Car DVR mounted to the windscreen. I'm also looking forward to getting the Camcorder type mount if/when it is released. This apparently adds both an LCD screen and a much needed tripod hole to the camera. I should mention again the low light recording capabilities which are really amazing and the best I've ever experienced in any camera.
I think that the GoPro 3 White whilst being a cheaper entry point into the GoPro product line might have skimped a bit too much on the image sensor. The problem seems to be that GoPro needed a product at a price-point to deter people from buying the Chinese GoPro clones. Whilst most people would prefer to buy a real GoPro so that they could use the multitude of mounts available it was previously way more expensive than some other action cameras. Whilst the White edition is certainly a more attractive prospect at £200, but it seems that GoPro needed to create a reason for people to want to pay the extra for the Silver edition and therefore lumped the White Edition with a smeary slow sensor, prone to CMOS wobble and dark images. I can't actually believe that the sensor in the Silver Edition costs anything more than a few pence extra over the one in the White so the £80 price difference between the two must just be there to add some kind of desirability and prestige for the more expensive model. The Lens and functional capabilities of the White are a match for the Silver model…it's just the sensor in the white that feels old and tired. The Black model suddenly doesn't seem such bad value for money, especially now that it comes with the WiFi remote and some additional mounts. Perhaps one for a future test….
I must however point out that I will continue to concentrate on reviewing the cheap Chinese cameras. One of the reasons for getting these two expensive models was so that I could benchmark the cheaper cameras against them. In future tests I'll now know how close a £50 camera from China comes to matching the quality of one of these £200 models.
I have uploaded some raw samples from each camera to my DumpTruck folder.
I am also now aware that the green light I mention being inside the Sony Battery Compartment is a reflection from a hologram.
SAMPLE FILES CAN BE ACCESSED BY CLICKING HERE
Oh, and by the way - Happy New Year. Thanks for watching during 2012 and I hope I'll have some more things worth sharing with you throughout 2013.
UPDATE - Sony sell a replacement door set for the waterproof case, and one door is designed to allow sound to get in. Looks like another thing for me to test out.
Follow up video on the Sony AS15, new firmware and mounts HERE
Reader Comments (52)
Hey Techmoan
How r u? Nice Review as usual. waiting for follow-up video . thnax for this reivew and Happy New Year (2013) to you.
Hi Techmoan,
Great reviews..
I can open the gopro files, The Sony files I can acces too, but they don't open
Can anyone else report back on their success or failure in downloading any of these clips?
They work for me...but then again they would do.
Hey,
Compared to what speeds I usually achieve from MediaFire (a few MB/s), this DumpTruck seems oddly slow at a measly 200 KB/s in total for all simulatneous downloads.
Not really fun to download HD clips this way.
I can see all the video files you have uploaded to Dumptruck, but I cannot download or view them. Great review of the Sports cams. I was surprised by the quality of the Sony images, A bit of a shocker for the GoPro.
Mediafire access is apparently banned by loads of ISPs (including BT here in the UK). If anyone can come up with a good alternative that doesn't automatically delete files after a pre-determined period of time, please let me know.
I'm downloading the files fine (to Australia). I'm playing them okay in mplayer and VLC on Linux :)
When I click on one of these files it will play it...then at the top right there is an option to download the file instead. Does this not work for anyone else?
Thanks Ian. Things must just just be a bit clogged up for some people. If anyone is having problems, I'd suggest to wait a bit and try again later.
Dropbox, SkyDrive or Google Drive, perhaps?