The Ultimate Akaso EK7000 Review!
As we have been mentioning in a few of our articles over the last few weeks, the entry-level action camera market is definatley heating up with more brands releasing their own cheap GoPro alternatives due to action camera technology becoming cheaper and cheaper to produce. This is excellent for anyone looking to add a budget-friendly action camera to their collection of camera accessories as brands is compeating with each other to knock out a cheap camera that offers you excellent performance.
Due to this, we have noticed a steady increase in people reaching out for advice on a number of different action cameras on the market over the last few months. Our regular readers will probably know that we have been publishing a fair few articles based around various camera bodies that we have seen people reaching out for advice on and today is the turn of the Akaso ek7000.
Around three years ago, Akaso absolutely dominated the entry-level action camera market and managed to earn an excellent reputation for themselves. They knocked out camera after camera that blew the competition out of the water and allowed the Akaso range to become the dominant camera range in the sub-one hundred dollar price bracket. Due to this, we see a ton of people asking about their various cameras so we have decided to publish our own, dedicated Akaso ek7000 review to help any of our readers who are considering adding the camera to their collection.
Now, although the Akaso ek7000 was pretty much the undisputed king of entry-level action cameras back when it was released and managed to earn an excellent reputation for itself times have definatley changed. Technology evolves at such a rapid pace these days that the ek7000 is definatley showing its age and even the latest flash ship from Akaso, the Brave 6 blows it out of the water with only a small increase in price.
That said though, in our opinion, Akaso has become complacent due to the success of their older cameras and have stopped innovating as much as they once did. In our opinion, the Akaso Brave 6 is missing basic technology that we would expect as standard in a modern entry-level action camera and in our opinion, the Apeman Trawo is the best cheap action camera on the market right now. It has an excellent reputation amongst the community and pretty much dominates this price point at the time of writing.
In our opinion, our readers should seriously be considering the Apeman Trawo over the Akaso ek7000 as it is a much better action camera with only a slight increase in price. That said though, we know that a some of our readers will still want to know more about the ek7000 so we will still be going over our review of the action camera below. We will also be sharing various points throughout the review as to where the Trawo is better due to the ek7000 being almost four years old at the time of writing and having dated technology in it.
Performance And Functionality
Although the ek7000 does offer 4k video footage, it is digitally upscaled 4k rather than native 4k. Depending on what you are planning to do with your new action camera this could be an issue as it can rapidly deplete your camera’s battery power for the digital upscaling process. Essentially, the ek7000 actually captures its video footage in a lower resolution and then processes it to digitally change its resolution to meet the requirements of 4k.
In all fairness to Akaso, this process is still very common today on higher price point cameras due to it being such a cheap technology. That said though, the Apeman Trawo is a similar price point and offers native 4k right out of the box making it a much better option. Not only does this result in better battery life but it also removes the excess heat that is generated during digital upscaling footage that may lead to overheating in the ek7000. That said though, if you don’t plan to use 4k video and want to record in a lower resolution, this is not an issue and the Akaso ek7000 should be able to perform well enough.
The camera is able to record its video footage at 4k with twenty-five frames per second, 2.7k with thirty frames per second, and 1080p at sixty frames per second. In our opinion, for optimal performance of the ek7000 as well as the best possible battery life, the 1080p setting is the best and it also offers the best frame rate too.
One thing that may hurt the ek7000 is the lack of 720p at one hundred and twenty frames per second. This is essentially the slow-motion setting for compeating action cameras and is supported by the Apeman Trawo but is missing on the ek7000. If you are wanting to capture your action sports in slow motion or to record some slow-motion b-roll video for your vlogs then the lack of a slow-motion mode can be a pain.
Additionally, the image stabilization technology on the ek7000 is so dated that it may well be none existant by today’s standard even for the entry-level action cameras. If you do choose to go with the Akaso ek7000 then a cheap action camera gimbal like the Feiyutech G6 is pretty much going to be an essential camera accessory. It will ensure that you are getting super smooth video footage and in our opinion, is the best action camera gimbal on the market right now.
Although it was pretty much the standard for the sub-one hundred dollar price point back when the Akaso ek7000 was released, the camera has a 12MP camera sensor. This is most definatley sub-par by what you can get today for the same price range with the Apeman Trawo coming with a 20MP camera sensor as standard. If you are planning on capturing a large number of photographs with your new action camera then the Trawo offers much better stills than the ek7000.
The ek7000 has a fully adjustable lens that has aged pretty well with you being able to select either 170°, 120° or 90° for your photographs. This lets you get some narrow close-ups while also being able to adjust the field of view to ultra-wide-angle to capture any epic landscape scenes that you see while out and about on your adventures. Although the more modern action cameras also offer you a 70° option, there is very little difference between 70° and 90°.
The Akaso ek7000 uses a 1050mAh battery that is able to power the camera for around ninety minutes when capturing 1080p video footage. The camera comes with two batteries allowing you to power your action camera with one while you carry the spare battery with you. If you do need a longer battery then you are able to pick up a USB power bank to allow you to charge the spare battery in your bag while on the move while using the other battery to power your camera.
Although the Akaso ek7000 has managed to earn a great reputation amongst the community while also earning plenty of excellent independent reviews from action sports enthusiasts most of these are from a few years back. Although the customer base of the Akaso ek7000 is still growing at a slow pace, in our opinion, the Apeman Trawo is the camera that you should be going with.
User Interface And Control System
That said though if you are not involved in an action sport that involved water of cold weather the control system for the Akaso ek7000 should perform fine for you without issue. The navigation menu is very easy to work through while the options are all easy to find with ease making the system on the Akaso ek7000 very user-friendly for anyone who has not previously used an action camera as everything is so straight forward.
The camera is also fully compatible with 2.4g wireless technology too and comes with a wireless wrist strap remote control with your purchase as standard. This allows you to easily operate the basic functions of capturing a photograph or start/stop your video capture right from your wrist. This is particularly handy if you are in a sport where your action camera will be chest or helmet-mounted. Additionally, if you are doing something like mountain biking, the wrist remote also lets you keep one hand on your handlebars at all times while controlling your ek7000.
Smartphone App
There are no features on the Akaso ek7000 that require the smartphone app to function either meaning if you don’t want to use the smartphone app you really don’t have to. In all honesty, we doubt that many of our readers will get many benefits from actually using the app anyway but we just wanted to make our readers aware that it does exist and does perform well compared to some of the compeating cameras apps.
Build Quality And Design
Again though, this is going to depend on what you are doing as we know more and more people are using cheap action cameras for vlogging rather than actual action sports. If you are just planning to vlog or capture video footage for your social media accounts then this probably won’t matter much but again, the image resolution of the Apeman Trawo would make it the better option over the ek7000 for vloggers and social media influencers anyway.
The Akaso ek7000 comes in at 0.9 x 2 x 1.5 inches making it fit the majority of action camera mounting units on the market right now allowing you to mount the ek7000 to pretty much any action camera accessory you can find. It comes in at around 0.2 pounds of weight and although this should not be an issue for the vast majority of our readers, it may cause issues with some of the cheaper action camera gimbals by knocking you over the gimbals maximum load capacity.
The build quality of the waterproof camera that comes with the ek7000 is pretty solid in all fairness and can protect your camera down to around one hundred foot. That said though, we have seen a few reports of the cases leaking at its deeper limits. On the flip side of this though, this is a very small number of reports in the grand scheme of things and the protective cases can take a ton of punishment during use in other activities that can have an effect on their watertight sealing anyway.
Our Verdict
That concludes our ultimate Akaso ek7000 review and we hope that you have found it helpful. Although the Akaso ek7000 was a solid action camera back when it was released we would not recommend that you add it to your collection of camera accessories in this day and age. There have been multiple releases in the Akaso range with the Brave 6 (click here to read out full review) being their latest action camera.
That said though like we said back at the start of the article, the Brave 6 definatley falls short in a number of areas and in all honesty, is overpriced for what you are actually getting for your money in our opinion. We would highly recommend that our readers take a serious look at the Apeman Trawo and consider adding it to their collection of camera accessories instead as it is a much better option.
It has managed to earn itself one of, if not the best reputation of the current generation of cheap action cameras while earning a ton of excellent independent reviews from the community. Additionally, we have our own review of the camera and it also came top of our list of action cameras under $100 too.
