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

(Image credit: Future / Peter Wolinski)

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.

An oldie, but a (very) goodie

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.

DJI Osmo Action 4 attached to tripod — (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

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.

Price analysis

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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Peter is a Senior Editor at Tom's Guide, heading up the site's Reviews team and Cameras section. As a writer, he covers topics including tech, photography, gaming, hardware, motoring and food & drink. Outside of work, he's an avid photographer, specialising in architectural and portrait photography. When he's not snapping away on his beloved Fujifilm camera, he can usually be found telling everyone about his greyhounds, riding his motorcycle, squeezing as many FPS as possible out of PC games, and perfecting his espresso shots.

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An oldie, but a (very) goodie

Price analysis

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