R9 500 / 180by2.co.za
▶ The Ace Pro has a touch-based interface: you tap on-screen icons to bring up various menus and tool-tips, and swipe to access recorded content and settings. It's fairly intuitive – but there are also gesture and voice controls, or ▶ 4K video is sharp with a good balance of colours, but it doesn't blow its competitors out of the water. Low-light footage is much softer, and you may notice strange artefacts caused by movement; still, it's a good effort – the best we've seen from a standard action camera to date. ▶ The FlowState stabilisation is more than sufficient. With three ‘strengths’, plus a Horizon Lock mode that works to 45° during regular video capture and 360° in FreeFrame mode, it lets you pick the best balance between stability and image cropping. ▶ The built-in mics capture stereo AAC audio that suffers badly in the wind, but they serve their purpose well enough; users looking for something special should invest in an external mic setup. ▶ The Ace Pro just pips the GoPro Hero12 Black on battery life, with a 64GB microSD card filling up before the 1650mAh cell died. That was after 75mins of continuous recording at 4K@30fps – and there was still a decent chunk of power left. It's quick to charge too.
