The GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini is one the most interesting action cams we've seen for a few years, but we'll sadly have to wait a bit longer to see it – GoPro has delayed its expected availability until next month.
The Hero 11 Black Mini, which packs most of the GoPro Hero 11 Black's shooting power into a cheaper, smaller form factor, was due to start shipping today. But GoPro has updated that expected availability to November 18.
Interestingly, GoPro hasn't blamed the delay on supply chain issues, which is the typical reason we've seen for late camera shipping. Instead, GoPro CEO Nicholas Woodman simply said that "we’re giving ourselves a little more time to perfect the product for our excited customers".
That suggests a teething problem of some kind – we've asked GoPro for more specifics, but we'll likely simply have to wait the extra three weeks and hope everything's been properly ironed out.
Given the relatively short delay, the issue is most likely to be software-related. One of the big differences between the Hero 11 Black and its Mini sibling is that the latter lacks a touchscreen, instead offering only a tiny monochrome display on the top next to its shutter button. This means that changing your shooting settings and styles involves using the GoPro Quik app, which is likely to be updated when the Hero 11 Black Mini launches.
Another challenge for the Hero 11 Black Mini is likely to be battery life and minimizing overheating. The action cam has a non-removable 1,500mAh battery, and GoPro hasn't yet released its expect battery life per charge. The camera also has heat sinks on its back to keep it cool, but we'll be interested to see how it performs when shooting continuously both with and without airflow.
Analysis: Minor delay hopefully means minor issues
The Hero 11 Black Mini's shipping delay is both good news and bad news. On the plus side, it's good that GoPro is planning to smooth out any teething problems before the action cam launches, which isn't always the case. It also hasn't been pushed back to next year.
In recent years, we've seen many products, like the DJI Mavic 3, launch well before they were ready, requiring lots of firmware updates to get them up to their claimed levels of performance and feature sets.
On the other hand, we don't yet know why the Hero 11 Black Mini's shipping has been delayed, and that expected availability is getting dangerously close to peak shopping season.
We'll be putting the Hero 11 Black Mini through its paces before that November 18 shipping date, so look out for our full review before then. If you want a breakdown of how the compact action cam compares to its big brother, check out out GoPro Hero 11 Black vs Hero 11 Black Mini comparison.
And, if both of those new action cams are a bit beyond your budget, it's well worth keeping an eye on the Black Friday GoPro deals. While we likely won't see any major discounts until November, our guide takes you through what to expect and which older GoPro models are likely to offer the best value during this year's sales.
