Akaso Brave 7 Review: 4K Waterproof Action Camera on a Budget

Akaso Brave 7 is an affordable action camera with many great features like dual-screen, waterproof, 4K video recording with solid image stabilization and distortion correction. The camera is promising some great video performance and excellent battery endurance.

Let’s Inspect.

Overview

In a hurry, read this short overview stating the pros and cons of Akaso Brave 7.

Pros

Good Build Quality
Affordable
Comes with loads of useful accessories
Good electronic image stabilization
Good video quality at 30fps

Cons

Dreadful microphone performance
Not so great battery life
60fps and 90fps video is blurry and grainy
Not better than the old V50X

Price

Akaso is well-known for its budget-friendly action cameras. The Brave 7 is offering a dual-screen like other premium brands at 150$. You can also check the discount link at the bottom of the article.

The price is half of what DJI Osmo Action costs and SJ10 Pro from SJCam. Moreover, it is three times lesser than the GoPro Hero 9 ad Insta360.

Unboxing

Brave 7 has a remarkable unboxing experience. The box is identical to the boxes of GoPro Hero 6 or 7. Akaso might have thought that the people are missing the good old GoPro packing, or does Akaso has something to do with GoPro. Anyways I believe every company should have their own identity portrayed creatively.

The box is literally stuffed with accessories. In the box, we have the Brave 7, frame, remote control, battery charger, two batteries, helmet mount, lens cloth, handlebar mount, strap, zip tie, USB cable adhesive pads and lastly, the quick start guide. These are the most accessories that a company can offer with an action camera.

Appearance and Build Quality

Uncanny Resemblance between SJCAM SJ 10 Pro and Akaso Brave 7

Akaso Brave 7 is a nice camera; the appearance is quite similar to the SJCAM SJ 10 series. The camera comes in a solid plastic cage.

Upfront, we have the front screen with the 20mp lens. Almost everything is the same as the SJCAM 10 series. The bottom has a similar battery spot, power button with a Wi-Fi indicator on top, mic and a button on the left side with two control buttons on the right.

Overall, construction looks solid, it is nowhere close to premium, but it is the first Akaso camera that doesn’t look cheaply built. Moreover, the plastic case is handy and allows you to use the camera roughly.

Features

Brave 7 is a great action camera; it is a capable camera at a fairly affordable price. The features are not as good as 2021, but still, it delivers an acceptable performance.

Akaso Brave 7 features a dual colour screen. The handy screen is an essential part of 2021’s action cameras as it makes vlogging easier. Moreover, the IPX8 rating allows underwater shooting up to 5 meters.

Brave 7 is using EIS 2.0; it works exceptionally well. After looking at the quality, it’s hard to tell that the video is shot handheld with a selfie stick. There are no gimbal or editing tricks to make it stable.

The 20mp lens has 170 FOV, and you can choose among 70, 110 or 140 depending on the type of video you are making. It also has voice control and distortion correction for clear footage.

The other excellent feature is the number of accessories. The box is packed with goodies that can help you shoot better footage.

Hardware

Chipset: HiSilicon 3559v200
Image Sensor: IMX 548 13mp
Battery: 1350mAh
Waterproof: IPX8
External Microphone Support: Yes

Software

Akaso Brave 7 doesn’t disappoint in terms of software. There are not a lot of options in the menu. Like you cannot produce professional footage, and most of the controls are manual like GoPro.

There is electronic stabilization and distortion correction. Both of them works greatly when used separately but suffer badly when used together. Image quality falls badly. So, use EIS when shooting handheld or with a selfie stick and use distortion correction with gimbal or a tripod.

Moreover, it has an app Akaso Go allows you to edit the video and share them with a single click.

Performance

Video Quality

The video quality is not impressive. The camera can shoot at 4K, but the 4K is native, meaning there are no tricks to enhance the video quality. It doesn’t record at true 4K.

Brave 7 still struggles with 1080p 60fps; videos are still grainy and blurry with missing details. Bad performance at 60fps pushes Brave 7 down in the list as it is not suitable for cyclists, bikers etc. Moreover, 90fps is worse than 60fps; it is pretty limited and does not deliver acceptable results.

Battery Endurance

1350mAh battery can deliver 110 minutes on paper. But the battery life was inconsistent in my test I was only getting 40 minutes at 4K recording.

Mic Performance

Mic performance is not good; Akaso claims to integrate wind noise reduction. But the results were the opposite; the internal mic creates a weird sound. You can use an external microphone for better audio.

Drawbacks

Terrible Microphone.
No 4K 60fps.
Lack of 120fps and mediocre performance at 60fps and 90fps.
Inconsistent Battery Life.
Missing ¼ mount.

Conclusion

To sum up, the key advantages of the Akaso Brave 7 are the housing bringing the IPX waterproofness, dual-display setup, and many accessories. Video and photo performance is somewhat average and perhaps worse than the wide-angle modules on most smartphones these days.

Obviously, phones are slowly killing action cameras these days, and I think that Insta360 are so far the only company acknowledging this by providing the ultra-interesting Go 2 model recently.

If Akaso and the few remaining action camera makers want to survive, they need to do better. The Brave 7 is not a bad camera, but right now, the Osmo action is 199 on Amazon, making it impossible to justify spending 150 for the much worse-performing Akaso, despite being designed two years after DJI released their product. If the price gets a little lower. Maybe Akaso will change, but right now, it’s hard for me to recommend it. If you can still find the good old V50 series Pro, plus and the X are pretty close about performance and features.

Where to Buy?

Here is a discounted link to Akaso Brave 7. You can watch the video review on YouTube and learn about more cool techs here.