GoPro 12 Camera | Very Frustrating and Time Consuming Unboxing and Setup

A mishap occurred with the GoPro 8 camera's batteries. Since this is the camera I use to record most of the Christmas light setups, which I am amidst right now, I urgently needed to restore the camera's functionality. I attempted to order new batteries to resolve the issue, but found the batteries are no longer available. As of this taping, GoPro only seems to make the batteries for the camera 9 and newer. I do not trust knockoff/aftermarket lithium batteries, so I was left with no choice but to buy a whole new camera.

I didn't want to buy a new camera as the camera 8 I had was still working properly. Even the batteries were still holding a good charge. But since I needed the camera immediately and I wasn't going to be able to get through all the videos I wanted to record with only the two batteries, I had to get a new unit. I decided to go with the camera 12, for no other than that the batteries should be available for the longest. Normally I do not like to buy the latest models of products, or even buy products new, but with how quickly these cameras become rendered obsolete and 'unsupported', it only made sense to by the newest one.

To me, a camera should be generally ready to use out of the box, aside from configuring user preferences and perhaps some basic system settings like the date and time, for instance. This camera requires a whole software update to be downloaded and applied, right out of the box. There's even a piece of paper over the camera saying so, which really makes me wonder why this update couldn't have just been applied at the factory...

To make matters worse, the update apparently can only be applied wirelessly and through an Apps. There's no way to do it on the computer, and there's no way to do it over Ethernet, which may be the most absurd part about it. Since the camera itself is Wi-Fi enabled, I really don't understand why the camera cannot download and install the update by itself, independently of the Apps. I would still find that disagreeable, but much less complicated.

The setup was a total pain in the rear and took a few hours start to finish. The physical unboxing itself was also a pain, the packaging is very poorly designed and hard to open and remove the contents. Needless to say, not a very good first experience.

I suspect the camera itself will work just fine and take a decent video as these cameras have been pretty consistent over the years. It's larger than the old unit, and the software works a little different so there will be somewhat of a learning curve. I wish I could have gotten the camera under better circumstances where I had a chance to take the time to get to know it before using, but it will need to go into immediate service in order to complete the Christmas decorations recording series.