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Forget GoPro — my favorite budget action camera is a DJI, and it's on sale right now

Forget GoPro — my favorite budget action camera is a DJI, and it's on sale right now

Tom's Guide17-06-2025
I count myself as blessed: as cameras editor here at Tom's Guide, a large part of my job entails testing all of the best action cameras around. And I love action cameras.
One of my absolute favorites is the DJI Osmo Action 4 (OA4), which is currently on sale for $249 at Amazon. This isn't the cheapest we've seen the OA4 go — earlier this year it dropped to just $209. With tariffs now affecting prices of tech, though, there's no guarantee we'll see those prices again.
In the U.K., the Osmo Action 4 is also on sale at Amazon, reduced from £279 to £189, which is a huge discount.
The OA4 currently holds my award of best budget action camera, and is a formidable professional 4K action camera with a variety of extremely powerful features. If you're looking for a tool for content creation this summer — without breaking the bank — look no further.
The DJI Osmo Action 4 is my favorite budget action camera, packing 4K video at up to 120fps, professional features like Log profile recording, and easy connectivity with other DJI devices. It's currently $50 off, which isn't the cheapest we've seen it sell for, but is still a great price for such a powerful piece of kit.
In the U.K., the OA4 is on a huge discount, with £90 off, putting this camera under the £200. There really is no comparison in this price band. If you're in the U.K. and looking for a budget action cam, get this deal right away.
These days, there's a lot of choice in the action camera arena, with plenty of competition between DJI, GoPro and Insta360. The budget options are a little more restricted though.
There are affordable 'latest model' cameras out there, such as the Akaso Brave 8 Lite, and even the GoPro Hero (2024). These cameras have big drawbacks, though, in terms of video performance, features and usability.
Your best bet if looking for an action camera on a budget is to look for an older model. But old does not mean bad. The DJI Osmo Action 4 is technically an "old model", having been succeeded in 2024 by the epic DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro (which holds the top spot on our action cams roundup). But it's still a seriously good camera for even hardcore content creators.
The OA4 packs 4K video at up to 120fps, as well as D-Log recording for increased dynamic range (although you'll need to grade this footage yourself in post). It has extremely good internal microphones, but can also hook up seamlessly to DJI audio devices such as the DJI Mic 2 and DJI Mic Mini — both considered among the best microphones for content creators.
As I mentioned up top, this isn't the cheapest I've seen this camera sell. I'm constantly tracking the prices of cameras, so I've seen how the DJI Osmo Action 4 fluctuates in price.
In last year's Black Friday events, and in sales events earlier this year, I saw the OA4 drop as low as $209 for the Standard Combo. That's $40 cheaper than the current deal price.
If you wanted to wait for a sales event, there is a chance you may be able to shave more money off, however, we're only talking about $40. Those price drops during previous events were also pre-tariffs, so there's no guarantee we'll see them again.
All in all, I still think $249 is a very fair price for such a strong action camera, so this deal still warrants my recommendation.
In the U.K., where the Osmo Action 4 is currently on sale for just £189, it's a total no-brainer. This is a wildly cheap price for such a professional action camera. It's £10 less than the super-budget GoPro Hero (2024), and that camera isn't even in the same league as the DJI.
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Gear News of the Week: Amazon Buys Bee, VSCO Has a New App, and CMF Debuts a Smartwatch
Gear News of the Week: Amazon Buys Bee, VSCO Has a New App, and CMF Debuts a Smartwatch

WIRED

timean hour ago

  • WIRED

Gear News of the Week: Amazon Buys Bee, VSCO Has a New App, and CMF Debuts a Smartwatch

Plus: Google Photos lets you convert images to videos, Microsoft has a 5G Surface, and Palmer Luckey asks if you'd buy a US-made laptop. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Amazon has acquired Bee, a relatively new AI company that debuted an always-listening wearable earlier this year. Bee cofounder Maria de Lourdes Zollo shared the news via LinkedIn. We covered Bee AI at CES 2025—it was one of many new wearables that promised to listen to everything around you. It didn't save audio recordings, but it used the power of third-party and in-house large language models to transcribe words and create a journal of sorts, offering insights into your day, crafting takeaways, actionable tasks, and summaries of conversations. 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Even with the $30 price bump, it's still one of the cheapest smartwatches around, though it runs RTOS (real-time operating system), meaning you won't be able to access your favorite apps here. That trade-off lets the Watch 3 Pro purportedly last 13 days on a single charge, a slight bump over its predecessor (the new watch lasts 4.5 days if you have the always-on display enabled). There's a new dual-band GPS for more accurate route tracking, 131 sport modes with a personalized running coach, and a new heart-rate sensor that CMF claims is more accurate across workout intensities and skin tones. Naturally, there's a dose of 'AI-powered' post-workout summaries. The CMF Watch 3 Pro can now track blood oxygen levels and stress, and it offers guided breathing exercises to help you relax. It even has period tracking. That's almost all the typical health features found on more full-featured smartwatches, save the electrocardiogram and fall detection. 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I'm the CEO of Twitch. My day starts with a 5-mile run and often ends with playing country songs on a late-night livestream.
I'm the CEO of Twitch. My day starts with a 5-mile run and often ends with playing country songs on a late-night livestream.

Business Insider

time2 hours ago

  • Business Insider

I'm the CEO of Twitch. My day starts with a 5-mile run and often ends with playing country songs on a late-night livestream.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dan Clancy, the 61-year-old CEO of Amazon-owned Twitch, who lives outside of Portland, Oregon. It's been edited for length and clarity. When I was an undergrad at Duke, I double-majored in computer science and theater — an unusual combination that often raised eyebrows. Most people couldn't see how the two fit together. Fast-forward a few decades, and my path led me deep into tech: earning a Ph.D. in AI and computer science and working at places like NASA, Google, YouTube, and Nextdoor. By the time I arrived at Twitch, I was seen primarily as a tech executive. But at my core, I've always been a creative. Being CEO of Twitch gives me the rare opportunity to bring both sides of myself — technologist and creative — into a single role. Here's what a typical day looks like for me. BI's Power Hours series gives readers an inside look at how powerful leaders in business structure their workday. See more stories from the series here, or reach out to the editor Lauryn Haas to share your daily routine. I wake up at 7 a.m. and run five miles I usually wake up naturally. I don't worry about an alarm clock. I try to exercise in the morning unless I have a super early meeting. If my meeting starts at 9 a.m., I'll wake up at 7 a.m. or so, and then I'll try to be out running by 7:30 a.m., and I'll run four or five miles. I will get back about 8:30 a.m. In 2017, I started running regularly. In the past, I'd run for three months and then I'd stop. This time I gamified it and it stuck. Then I started biking, I started swimming, and then I did two Ironmans. I did a number of half-Ironmans. I did a half-Ironman last year. I use a Garmin. I'm not training right now, but when I am training, I'll try to exercise twice a day. Aside from bike riding or swimming, I like to white-water kayak. Usually, I am at my home in Washington working remotely, so I don't need to worry about commuting. I try not to look at my phone. It's always tempting to start swiping in some random app, but in general, I very much try to avoid. If I'm swiping for five minutes, it's probably Instagram. I drink Coca-Cola, not coffee I'm not a coffee drinker and I'm not much of a breakfast eater. At one point, when I was trying to lose weight, I did intermittent fasting, and now I'm not intermittent fasting, but I still often don't eat in the morning. My bad habit is I drink Coca-Cola now. I try to keep it to one, and I don't need it in the morning, but I do get caffeine. I always go through these cycles of saying, "I need to stop drinking Coke." And then I stop for a while and I feel good about it, and then I start drinking it. Ever since I was young, I'll keep flopping back and forth, and the family is constantly encouraging me to give up the habit. My day is back-to-back meetings I spend most of the time meeting with people. It might be a product review or a go-to-market review. I have one-on-ones with various folks. Some days we have an off-site with our leadership team. Slack is the primary channel. I still check my email regularly, but to be honest, my email now is dominated by messages I don't need to pay attention to. I have a 30-minute meeting later to sync on a personnel project. Then I have a two-hour quarterly business review. This is Amazon culture for managing what's going on. Once a quarter, we'll have a QBR for all of our business units. This one is for community health, which is the team that works on our moderation tools. Lunch is usually some form of a sandwich. I'm not a fine-dining person. I just think, why should I spend 30 bucks on a lunch? I can afford 30 bucks on a lunch, but it seems like I don't need it. My generative hours are around midnight There's also times when I need to be generative. I find it hard to be generative in the same space and in the middle of a day. Often, my modus operandi is that I'll get going at 10 or 11 at night, and then I'll just write till one in the morning. This probably was conditioned in me when my kids were young. I was working at NASA at the time, and then Google for some of it. Google is a good example. Folks were staying late at Google in 2005, but I'd still try to get home at 6 or 6:30. I'd spend time with the kids, do dinner, run around outside. Half the time I'd fall asleep while putting them to bed. Then I'd wake up at 11:00 p.m., start catching up on email and writing stuff. People always joked that they would get these notes from me at 3:00 a.m. I hang out and sing on livestream Today my work day ends at 3 p.m. because I'm streaming tonight. I'm doing my first full charity stream with an organization GCX for St. Jude's. The beauty of streaming is very little goes into prepping it. I streamed Tuesday night and the prep work that went into the stream was: I showed up in the room where we have a piano, I turned on the computer, I made sure my OBS configuration was right, and I hit "Go live." On that stream, I talked with the community some, but then I played probably a handful of songs. Sometimes I like to drop in on other streamers and hang out with them. On that stream, I knocked on T Pain's stream and we hung out for like 45 minutes chatting. Then I did an hour more of songs and signed off. The other day I was mostly playing Tyler Childers' songs. I'm a big fan of Zach Bryan, so I do a lot of his songs. Sturgill Simpson, Gregory Alan Isakov, and this guy Jeffrey Martin, who I think is amazing. Everybody knows "Let It Be" or "Take Me Home, Country Road" or "Piano Man," but those aren't the ones I usually choose. I consider myself a mediocre piano player, but as I'm improvising, it sounds like I know what I'm doing. I read and spend time with my kids after work If I'm at home, I'll do something with the kids at night. My son's 23, my daughter's 27. My daughter has an 11-month-old now. We all live close to each other. I'm the one who often did the cooking, but that's just because I'm a functional cook. I pick some form of protein, a tri-tip, steak, salmon, chicken. I pick something to do with potatoes, and then they're like five vegetables that are my go-to. It's fairly repetitive. I mostly cook at home. I can't remember the last time I had a non-work dinner where we made a reservation. I'll watch TV shows, but I don't watch many movies anymore. I just watched "Paradise." I liked "Your Friends and Neighbors" and "The Penguin." A little bit of drama, but not a horror thing. When it's time to wind down around 10:30 to 11 p.m., I'll lie down and read. I just finished reading "Long Island" by Colm Tóibín. I like novels, but I'm not really a Tom Clancy novel reader. I'm much more of a literary novel reader, something that has emotional connection. One of my favorite authors is Cormac McCarthy and his book "The Road." I've read it a few times. I fall asleep fairly quickly once I've started reading. Ten minutes and I'm getting sleepy.

Best Stock to Buy Right Now: Amazon vs. Opendoor Technologies
Best Stock to Buy Right Now: Amazon vs. Opendoor Technologies

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Best Stock to Buy Right Now: Amazon vs. Opendoor Technologies

Key Points A hedge fund manager believes Opendoor could go to $82 per share over the coming years. Amazon doesn't have nearly as much upside, but is already a proven winner. 10 stocks we like better than Opendoor Technologies › Wall Street thought struggling real estate e-commerce company Opendoor Technologies (NASDAQ: OPEN) was down and out. Suddenly, the stock has surged over 500% in less than a month. What's going on? A hedge fund manager recently announced an investment in the stock via social media, setting an $82 price target for shares that ignited interest in a company that has struggled in a slow housing market. But is it wiser to chase the momentum, or to look to a proven e-commerce winner in Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) instead? Let's take a closer look at Opendoor's prospects and determine which of these two hot growth stocks is the better buy right now. Is Opendoor Technologies poised for a comeback? Opendoor Technologies aimed to become the housing market's version of Amazon with iBuying, a process by which a company buys and resells homes through an online marketplace. The company went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger in late 2020, amid a period of 0% interest rates that ultimately led to high inflation and prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively. The resulting spike in mortgage rates (plus already higher home prices) slammed the brakes on the housing market, creating tremendous problems for Opendoor, which took significant losses on homes it struggled to sell for a profit. Opendoor's stock has cratered since then as losses continue. Hedge fund manager Eric Jackson elaborated in his post on X that he believes the company's cost-cutting, pivot to partnering with agents, and lack of direct competitors offer a path to significant upside over the coming years, comparing it to the remarkable turnaround that Carvana achieved. Eric Jackson acknowledges the risks associated with Opendoor stock, but setting such a high target for a company has spiked investor interest in the stock, sending it soaring. Amazon offers far more certainty, though it's probably not a 100-bagger anymore Amazon, one of the world's most prominent companies, is a safer stock to own. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. But Amazon's massive $2.4 trillion market capitalization also means it has nowhere near the upside potential Opendoor does. That said, the company still has room for growth. E-commerce accounts for less than a fifth of total retail spending in the United States, and Amazon's lucrative cloud unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is poised to grow significantly over the coming decade and beyond as artificial intelligence (AI) drives increased cloud usage. Analysts estimate Amazon will grow earnings by an average of 21% annually over the next three to five years. Assuming the stock's valuation remains the same, that growth would double the stock price in just under four years. That's no 100-bagger, but most investors would probably take those returns with a smile. Sometimes, a bird in the hand is worth 100 in the bush Comparing two very different e-commerce stocks boils down to this: The probability that Amazon doubles in value over the next three to five years is far greater than the probability that Opendoor increases by 100 times. Opendoor's core iBuying business is steadily dragging the company down, steadily depleting the company's book value. The iBuying process is a low-margin business model that ties up a significant amount of capital while unsold houses sit on the balance sheet. Opendoor isn't buying and reselling inventory fast enough, or fleshing out its iBuying model with enough higher-margin add-on services to make the company sustainable to this point. It could remain an uphill battle in a slow housing market plagued by affordability issues. The idea of an Amazon-like e-commerce experience for real estate sounds good at first, but it hasn't translated to business success. Until something changes here, Opendoor faces substantial risks that make it hard to justify buying the stock at a premium to its book value. It's like playing the lottery. Someone, somewhere, may win, but it's a terrible way to try and make money. I don't know how high Opendoor may go. The market has become quite euphoric, which bodes well for speculative behavior. Opendoor announces earnings on Aug. 5. The company needs to deliver solid, or at least improving, business fundamentals; otherwise, the stock could easily reverse course rather quickly. What I do know is that Amazon is the superior business and the better growth stock to buy right now. It's not even close. Should you buy stock in Opendoor Technologies right now? Before you buy stock in Opendoor Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Opendoor Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $636,774!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,942!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,040% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Best Stock to Buy Right Now: Amazon vs. Opendoor Technologies was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

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