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Best Action Cam & Drone Deals: GoPro, DJI, Insta360, HoverAir (Black Friday)

Here’s your consolidated list of the best action camera and drone deals, with tons of insight for those using these products for sports, such as follow-me drones and more. In virtually every product below, I’ve used them extensively across countless hours of testing and regular usage. Thus, I can give you tips on what to buy…and what to skip. Note, do see my general note about DJI below this.

With that, let’s take a look at some of the most popular product deals (or, my favorites):

GoPro Hero 13 Black for $309 ($100 off): GoPro has decided to skip releasing a Hero 14 this year, and thus this remains their most recent model. It easily holds its own in daylight footage against all of its competitors. It’s the main camera I use, and I most appreciate the GoPro Cloud backup piece, so everything just automatically syncs there, in case I kill/lose (yet) another camera to the ocean.

Insta360 Ace 2 Pro for $334 ($65 off): This is my other main daily driver, primarily for low-light footage (where the GoPro struggles). They’ve also got really good integration with your sports data, including Garmin, Apple, and more. This allows you to very seamlessly overlay data from those workout types automatically. It’s super slick.

– DJI NEO 1 for $159 ($40 off): This is DJI’s smallest and most affordable drone, and is designed to follow you during sports. You can check out my full in-depth review on it here. It’s super cool, yet, the just-announced DJI NEO 2 came out last week, and is frankly, so much more impressive. I’ve just started testing it, and thus far it’s astonishing. Sure, the image quality is a huge step up, but even more so is just the way you control it. Hand signals, voice, buttons, all things not found on the NEO 1. That said, man, DJI spends an insane amount of engineering time avoiding doing what everyone has been asking for years for: A beacon/remote.

HoverAir Pro/Pro Max Drones (up to $350 off): These drones are the main competitor to DJI’s drones, except that HoverAir specifically focuses on follow-me drones for sports. That’s their jam, and they’re really really really good at it. In general, the HoverAir drone delivers better tracking and image quality than the NEO drones, but lacks all the regular-flying software features of DJI’s higher-end drones like the DJI Mini 5 Pro, etc… Said differently, if I’m going to take a drone to follow-me in the trees, it’s going to be a HoverAir drone (it’s the current reigning champ of my challenging Gauntlet test). But if I’m taking a drone to shoot super pretty scenic shots, it’s going to be a DJI drone.

Got all that? Good – the above would be my best picks on this list to consider.

Now, as noted, one thing to keep in mind about DJI if you are US-based, is that their ability to support US owners with replacement parts will dramatically decrease in about 33 days, on December 23rd, 2025. DJI has not officially launched any new products in the US in 2025 (except DJI Mic 3), due to the upcoming ban on DJI imports. This ban specifically covers all wireless components of all DJI products, thus includes both action cams and drones. Thus, if you crash your drone, your ability to get replacement/service is going to be extremely limited after that. As it is today, certain drones are already unsupported in the US (e.g., DJI NEO 2, Mini 5 Pro, etc…).

Now, I’d look at purchasing decisions from a risk-based standpoint. If you’re talking something like a DJI Action Cam, they’re frankly pretty darn hard to kill. About the only way you’re likely to kill one is leaving a battery door open and going swimming. Inversely, it’s extremely easy to kill a higher-end drone like a DJI Air 3S or Mavic 4. Whereas something like the DJI NEO series is pretty darn hard to kill, short of running it over with a car. Finally, remember that DJI’s warranties are specific to the country/region you bought it in.

Of course, the big challenge here is that when it comes to drones specifically, there just aren’t good competitors to DJI’s higher-end units (e.g., Mini 5 Pro, Air 3S, Mavic 4, etc…). Thus, your alternatives are nonexistent. Whereas on the action cam side, both GoPro & Insta360 make fantastic products, which I’d argue are better in almost every feature area than DJI’s action cams.

As always, thanks for your support. Using the links below (and throughout the holiday season) helps the site, so I appreciate it (seriously!) As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Note: I’ll be publishing the full list of other sports tech deals here shortly, but you can find a similar page to this, with all the Garmin deals here, such as $250 off the Garmin Fenix 8, and plenty more.

Action Cameras & Drones:

Here’s the full list of everything that’s on sale right now:

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With that, thanks for reading!

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10 Comments

  1. Michal

    Hi, Are you planning to review DJI Osmo Nano anytime soon?

  2. Colin

    The GoPro Max 2 seems to be on a Black Friday deal on Amazon as well, at least on the UK site -£349.00 which seems like a good deal at the moment. Thanks for all your reviews and diligence that you do.

    • Indeed, looks like the sale might have just started today. I checked Amazon US last night and didn’t see it discounted, but now appears to be $50USD off. Looks like the UK deal is far better!

  3. valeria

    Hi from Argentina! I want to buy a drone, my first one. does the follow me function works inside the pool (not in the water itself), just to film my technique.
    thanks!

  4. spinnekopje

    This morning I saw GPLama’s video about the dji neo 2.. Looking forward to your review!
    The current deals are not really interesting for me as I live in Europe.

  5. frugal gadget lover

    “DJI spends an insane amount of engineering time avoiding doing what everyone has been asking for years for: A beacon/remote.”
    Umm if they are avoiding doing something, then how are they spending an insane amount of engineering time on it?

    • Bruce Burkhalter

      They have been working on software base follow mode tracking for years instead of doing a hardware beacon.

    • Correct.

      And yes, that follow mode has dramatically improved (though arguably, only after both Skydio and then really HoverAir) pushed them to. But at the end of the day, there’s just a ton of real-world scenarios where visual flight-following doesn’t work out (notably, anytime you go behind a tree). This is where a beacon solves that. It also tends to make tracking/camera-work more stable if there’s a lot of obstacles.

      DJI showed off their DJI RC Track last year in various places, though, never ended up releasing it. I suspect they decided that wasn’t as fancy as the HoverAir beacon with a screen and such. And certainly, that’s valid. But ultimately, companies like HoverAir are delivering what consumers want.