Deal or Scam? Buying a GoPro on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Days.
One big question often seen around this time of year is, “Should I buy a GoPro now, or wait for Black Friday/Cyber Monday for good deals? Similarly, Amazon has in recent years had “Prime Day” sales where you can often get marked down prices on many different products. This guide is intended to help you decide whether or not to wait or buy now, and when the deals come, are they any good?
Camera Deals
For anyone familiar with GoPro, you know that typically GoPro launches new cameras every fall, usually around Mid-September. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, with Cyber Monday following it. Amazon Prime days vary, but in 2022 the Fall Prime Days are October 11-12. With these deals SO close to launch, it often doesn’t make sense for brand new cameras to go on sale. GoPro already discounts their cameras so heavily from GoPro.com, it often doesn’t make sense to buy elsewhere. However, that doesn’t keep GoPro and other sites from offering good deals. Here’s what to look out for:
Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, etc : Look for nice discounts on PREVIOUS generations of cameras, discontinued mounts that GoPro no longer makes, and varying bundles already sold from these sites. For example, The 2021 HERO10 is likely to receive a discount this holiday season, but keep an eye out for bundle kits that include multiple first-party accessories (This kit is an example that includes name-brand accessories), as those may receive additional discounts. Similarly, GoPro MAX 360 Camera may see significant discounts, as it is a few years older now (but still performs great!).
GoPro.com - Look for bundle deals that include “upgrades”: extra mounts, accessories, increased storage card sizes, etc. While it’s less typical to see a discounted new-generation cameras (in this case, the HERO11 and HERO11 Mini), GoPro has historically offered additional accessories, batteries, or higher capacity storage cards in their bundles during these holiday sales. GoPro also still sells MAX, HERO10, and HERO Bones cameras, which may see a discount.
“Deals” to avoid
Smart shoppers know that plenty of holiday sales are “too good to be true.” GoPro gear is no different, so here are deals you should avoid, even if they look great:
Any NEW generation camera from any other place than GoPro.com: In recent years, GoPro cut out the middle man and offers $100 off new cameras to anyone subscribed to their $50/yr service which includes damaged camera replacement, cloud storage, automatic edits, etc. They even include your first year free ($150 off normal price). If you have an AMEX with a qualifying offer, you can get an additional $40 off, for a total of up to $190 off a brand new camera (guide here). There are no monetary drawbacks to getting this deal from GoPro, though many would note that their returns and shipping are not as fast as somewhere like Amazon.
Any “50-in-1” or similar super-pack of generic mounts/accessories: While deals may seem amazing for this many products, almost all of these kits are white-labeled (same manufacturer, but different branding often to avoid bad reputations/reviews) knock-offs made from sub-par materials and with poor fit tolerances, which means you risk losing your camera if you buy these and use them in demanding applications. No matter how good this deal is, it’s not worth it.
Cameras older than 2-3 years: While plenty of retailers still sell older GoPro cameras, the deals rarely make it worth buying when compared to picking one up lightly used via your local craigslist or facebook marketplace. It is fairly common to see a camera 6 generations old still selling for 60-70% of launch price at most retailers, while the second-hand market has them at ~20-30% original price. Because of this, you could often spend $20 more and get a camera MANY YEARS newer than what retailers are offering for the same price. Simple examples: Hero5 Session launched at $400, while Amazon has it for nearly double that. Similarly, Amazon has the Hero5 Black marked down about 40% factory “Renewed” (Refurbished), but also has the HERO9 Black for just $40 more.
SD Cards of any type from Amazon or Walmart: Unfortunately buying from these vendors online runs the risk of you getting a counterfeit or fake card that may under-perform and cause the camera to lock up at best, and lose your footage at worst. These fakes are usually mixed in inventory with legitimate products, so it’s difficult to know if they are real or not without benchmarking them. Typically, if a deal is really good for these products, you’ll likely get a fake. Avoid these during holiday sales. Examples of further reading on this topic: Amazon mixing inventory of fake/legit product, and Walmart found to be selling fake products.
“Deals” to look out for
OK, now that we know what to avoid, what are some GOOD deals to look out for during holidays sales? Here’s some highlights
3rd Party Accessories from reputable brands - While generic accessories can be an immensely bad decision, there are a number of third party accessory makers that make great products that GoPro does not. Examples of this would be compatible lens filters from companies like Polar Pro, or this mounting adapter from Telesin that enables 1/4-20 mounting in the base of the GoPro camera.
Supporting Ecosystem products like power banks: Reputable companies like ANKER often have good holiday sales, and sell things like cables, charging bricks, and power banks that can charge your camera gear multiple times over. Some of these are 40% or more off, and a great deal to add to the action camera tool kit.
Software, plugins, LUTs, etc: While GoPro isn’t particularly known for great software, there are plenty of other companies are. Keep an eye out for deals from third party software suits such as Adobe Premiere/Photoshop/Lightroom and Davinci Resolve (which has both free and paid premium versions), as well as other software plugins and LUT packs from your favorite creators.
