Action cam manufacturer GoPro announced this week that it will be launching a new compact action camera, the Hero 4 Session. 

Improving on what enthusiasts saw in previous GoPro devices, the upcoming Hero 4 Session is said to be the lightest and smallest in the series. According to the company's announcement, the next action cam is "the smallest, lightest, most convenient GoPro yet. 50% smaller and 40% lighter than GoPro's best-selling HERO4 Black and Silver cameras." 

Although the Session is noticeably smaller than the other Hero models, it still retains some of the features that are present in all of GoPro action cams such as different recording options. The Hero 4 Session records 1080p60, 720p100 and 1440p30 video along with 8-megapixel photos in Single, Burst and Time Lapse modes. In terms of other enhancement features, the new action cam also has SuperView, Protune and Auto Low Light recording modes, which were introduced in the previous Hero 4 Black and Silver edition cameras. 

However, unlike previous action cams that need different housings for different environments, the Session is already encased in a waterproof frame, which protects the device from water damage to a depth of 33 feet. With this, the new action cam doesn't need a waterproof housing when recording underwater. In addition, the Session has two microphones integrated in the assembly, and the cam automatically switches during shots in order to cut down on wind noise in the recordings. 

Nicholas Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro, lauds the new Session action cam as the next step in upgrading GoPro devices

"With Hero 4 Session, we challenged ourselves to produce the smallest, lightest, most convenient GoPro possible," he said. "Hero 4 Session combines the best of our engineering and user-experience know-how to deliver our most convenient life-capture solution, yet."