 Action cameras have been around for a long time now and every year it's the same story. GoPro makes the best one, other companies try to match that and they fail. Obviously the most important thing about an action camera is that it needs to take great footage. But it also needs a great system of accessories and mounts and it needs to be light and small enough that you can put it anywhere and use it in any situation. It should also be really easy to use and that doesn't just mean on-camera controls. It has to have a good companion app too. The camera that still does this better than anything else is the GoPro HERO4 Black. It shoots excellent footage in any situation, whether you're outdoors in sunlight, indoors in low light, or even at night. It's just the best image quality you're going to get from any action camera. The HERO4 Black can shoot 4K footage and has a few different super slow motion modes. It's also tiny. Even in a waterproof housing this thing is kind of hard to notice. GoPro menus used to be a chore to navigate but the company has done a really good job making the on-camera menu system a lot easier to use and honestly I like using that better than using the companion app. But the app still does a lot that the camera can't. It offers a live view with little lag so you can easily frame up your shot. You can also trim your clips, save them, and share them right from the app. Right behind the HERO4 Black is the HERO4 Silver. The HERO4 Silver is nearly the same camera as its more expensive counterpart and it's just as great. You still get really great image quality in almost any setting, but unlike the black there's a touch screen on the back so you can frame up your shots and change all your settings. It can't shoot 4K and it can't shoot in some of the same super slow motion modes as the HERO4 Black, but it's still a really capable camera. GoPro has been the industry leader for so long that not only does it have its own really great system of mounts and accessories, other companies make them for them too. And there's a mount for anything. There's a mount for your head, a mount for your chest, even a mount for your dog. It may not be able to do all the things that the HERO4 Black can do, but if you've never used an action camera before, the HERO4 Silver is probably the best one for you. Sony's 4K action cam is probably the best competitor ever to the top of the line GoPros. It's got great image quality with built-in image stabilization, pretty good battery life, and Sony's actually built out a pretty good system of mounts. The problem here is the 4K action cam is just a chore to use. The on-camera menu system is awful and it often takes a dozen or more taps just to accomplish a simple task. The good thing is that Sony's finally made a good app, one that you can even edit your footage in. If you're looking to shoot ultra-high resolution or slow motion video and you don't like GoPros for some reason, this is the action camera for you. Now GoPro released a few lower-end cameras this year and the most fun one to use by far is the HERO4 Session. It doesn't shoot 4K footage, but it's a tiny 1.5 inch cube that works with just the push of a button. Seriously, there's literally only one main button. There's no screen and the camera quickly turns on and off every time you start and stop recording, so the battery can last you for hours. You have to use your phone if you want to frame up your shot though, and it's not cheap. But this thing is waterproof out of the box and it's just the easiest action camera to throw in your pocket and use. Garmin has been in the action camera game for a few years now and the VIRB XE is its best effort yet. It's smaller and lighter than previous models and the image quality is way better. It's not as good as GoPros or Sonys, but it's better than everything else. The VIRB can also overlay a bunch of cool data on your footage like speed, G-force, altitude, and more. If you're really looking to gather a whole bunch of data while you're recording, this is definitely the camera for you. TomTom broke into the action camera market this year with the Bandit, and there's a lot I really like about this camera. For one, you never have to use wires. You can pull the battery right out of the camera and plug it right into a USB port to charge or dump your footage. Also, the app will edit the footage for you, marking cool moments by taking into account changes in things like velocity and altitude. The results are little hit or miss, and unfortunately, the image quality just isn't that great for the price that you're paying. And then there's the Drift Ghost S. It's not good. Don't buy it. The Drift is one of a bunch of action cameras that are trying to eat up the lower end of the action camera market. And if we were talking about it a year ago, it would probably be a pretty good competitor. The problem is all these other cameras have really left it in the dust. The action camera market looks a little different this year than it has in years past. GoPro's models might still be the best, but they're the same models that we saw last year. This means the competition's had a year to catch up, and the gap is closing really fast. Some of these companies are doing some really clever stuff with their action cameras. But none of them can offer the top-to-bottom experience that GoPro is so good at.