I used the wide version of the gopro, have friends that use the HD. The HD is much improved from the original in a couple areas IMHO, and I’m getting one for the ski season.
The wide used 2 AAA to power it, can hold up to a 4G SD card and runs for about an hour give or take on the batts. It shots about a 2gig an hour of vid. So depending on how you do it, you run the bats or fill the card up in about and hour.
The HD used a Lithium camera style battery pack and hold up to a 32G SD and runs for about 2.5 hours on a battery charge. You can shoot about 4.5 hours of 1080p or 720p shooting 60fps.
I agree the GoPro is the least low profile of the cameras, so if looks are important to you, you might want to check out something else.
The things I like about it. It’s in a case I can on and not damage the camera, you can also replace the lens for like 20bucks if you scratch them up. It uses a full size SD, not a micro SD like some of the slimmer cams use. The HD has the Li bat, which works much much better in the cold than a NiMH recharagable AAA. When it’s really cold skiing sometime i only get 20min out of the AAA, so you have to use non recharagable lithium bats that are $$$.
The GoPro is probably the most common came you’ll see on people riding moto and MTB, it’s also the most common one i see on the slopes.
Vholdr’s are probably the second most common ones.