GoPro owns the action cam market, but its cameras are expensive—if you want 4K you'll need to spend $400 on the Hero5 Black. There are plenty of lesser-known brands out there, offering cameras with similar functionality, but without as much polish, for less. We've tested a bunch of affordable models, and the Sjcam SJ6 Legend ($159) delivers the best balance of video quality, features, and price. That makes it our Editors' Choice for low-cost action cameras.

Design

The SJ6 Legend looks like almost every other action camera on the market. It's tiny, measuring just 1.6 by 2.3 by 1.1 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.9 ounces. Its body is plastic, and not waterproof on its own, but a protective case rated to about 100 feet (30 meters) is included. We received a sample with a black finish, but Sjcam also sells it in rose gold and silver.

There's a standard tripod mount on the bottom, a rarity for action cams. It adds some versatility in mounting, as you can use it with existing photographic equipment with ease. The waterproof case has a standard GoPro mount, for even more options.

The camera only has three control buttons. The top has a big Record button that's easy to press. On the right side you get two smaller buttons—the top is power and the bottom takes you to the main menu. In our tests, the battery netted 75 minutes of 4K recording.

The SJ6 features a touch LCD, a feature you don't often see in this price range. Because of this, you don't have to use small buttons to navigate through long pages of settings. The interface is quite intuitive—tap the bottom center of the display, where it tells you which mode you're in, to change the shooting mode, press the Play icon to go into playback mode, and tap the gear icon to adjust settings. The LCD is only 2 inches in size, but menu options are big enough to adjust comfortably.

There's a second LCD on the front. It's monochrome and not sensitive to touch. It shows you the current shooting mode, recording status, available memory, and battery life. It's a nice addition, especially if you have the camera mounted, as you can check if you're shooting with ease, even if the lens is turned in your direction.

A number of accessories are included in addition to the waterproof case. You get an assortment of different mounting arms and adapters, including a tripod adapter for the waterpoof case, adhesive-backed mounts, and a cage that isn't waterproof, but is compatible with GoPro accessories.

Connectivity

You'll find a microSD card slot as well as micro HDMI and mini USB ports on the left side. The dated mini USB port is used for data transfer and storage. I'd have preferred to see a micro USB connection, as those cables are much more common—it's a bit too early to hope for USB-C in a budget action cam.

There's also built-in Wi-Fi. The camera works with the free Sjcam app, available for Android and iOS, for remote control and wireless file transfer. You can see a live feed from the lens, adjust camera settings, take pictures, and start and stop video recording. One oddity—I wasn't able to select 4K recording when using the app for control; the highest setting available is 2K.

Video Quality and Features

The SJ6 records video at up to 4K quality with a 25Mbps bit rate and 24fps frame rate. That's great for a cinematic look, but if you want to shoot at the more sports-friendly 60fps in 4K, you'll need to spend more on the YI 4K+, which features a similar form factor and touch interface, but sells for around $340.

Despite not having the highest bit rate around, 4K video from the SJ6 is quite strong. Details are crisp and colors are accurate. I recorded a few different scenes using the camera for our sample clip. The first is a handheld walking shot with digital stabilization turned off. You can see that the video is shaky. For a second walking test I enabled the digital stabilization system—it is available when shooting at 4K. There are some added artifacts, but the jitters are gone. You still get the bobbing from side to side that's typical of handheld footage, but you'd see that effect with a Steadicam or gimbal as well.

The final portion of our test video is mounted footage, taken from a moving vehicle. Here we move from shaded areas to bright sunlight during a drive. You can see some jostling when going over bumps in the road, and changes in exposure. The sky blows out to white when passing under the shadows provided by trees, but when there's no shade the exposure changes to show the blue sky and puffy white clouds. You'll notice a date stamp in some portions of video—it's enabled by default, so you'll likely want to turn it off.

The dynamic range delivered by the video isn't as good as others—we saw more blue sky with the Wimius L1. You can enable WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) capture in situations where you're shooting in mixed lighting, and if that doesn't get you the results you want, try underexposing your footage using negative EV compensation and opening up shadows in your video editing suite.

If you don't shoot in 4K you have some other options. Dropping the resolution to 2K gives you a 30fps frame rate, the same as NTSC video, and you can shoot at 60, 50, 30, or 25fps—covering both NTSC and PAL standards. Sadly, 24fps capture isn't an option at 2K or 1080p. There's also slow-motion capability. You can crank the camera to 120fps at 720p (along with 30 or 60fps options), or shoot standard-definition 480p video at a fixed 240fps frame rate.

When shooting at 4K you get the typical ultra-wide field of view you expect from an action camera. This comes with a fish-eye effect. There is some distortion correction built-in, but its effect isn't great when shooting at the widest field of view. There are medium and narrow options as well, both of which are available when shooting in 4K.

Additional video features include video time-lapse, with 4K, 2K, 1080p, 720p, and 480p output options, as well as slow-motion capture at up to one-eighth speed, time-lapse photo capture, burst image capture, and simultaneous video and still capture. There's also a car mode that records video but turns off the rear LCD so it doesn't distract you when driving, and an underwater mode that tunes the video settings for aquatic use.

When not in its underwater case, audio quality is strong. The camera picks up my voice clearly, without the hollow or compressed signature we experienced with some other budget cameras. For pro-grade audio, you can add an optional external microphone via the mini USB port.

Still images are captured at 16MP resolution in JPG or Raw format. The Raw format is proprietary, and doesn't enjoy wide conversion support—you can't just load it into Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw as you can with a DNG file. You can grab an open source Raw converter if you use Windows or Linux. JPG photo quality is good. Details are crisp close to the lens, though the ultra-wide nature of the camera means that distant subjects aren't drawn with the same level of clarity. It's on par with a good smartphone camera.

Conclusions

The Sjcam SJ6 Legend is a solid action camera. It delivers stabilized 4K video in a small, affordable package, and it's quite easy to access all of its features thanks to a touch-screen interface. Add a standard tripod mount, a front information LCD, a waterproof case, and plenty of included mounting accessories, and you have an excellent value for $160. You sacrifice some polish and video quality compared with pricier models like the GoPro Hero5 Black and YI 4K+, but the SJ6 Legend is a top-notch option for budget shoppers. If you're looking for an even less expensive option, the Aukey AC-LC2 and Wimius L1 are both solid choices under $100.

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