I had a similar experience. I purchased a GoPro to use for a trip to Mexico. I had heard great stories about how durable and reliable they were from friends. So I didn't hesitate to buy one on Amazon.
Long story short all the footage from my vacation were unusable as many of the videos and pictures were corrupted/distorted which was annoying. Tried customer support but weren't able to fix the issue so I ended up returning it.
FWIW the framerate has a big impact on the battery life for me (Hero3 Black). 30 fps = longer batter life. That said the battery life on the Hero3's isn't great, especially in the cold. I have the battery backpack thing, and a few spare internal batteries for this reason. The upside is the video quality, and low light performance, is WAY better than previous generations. So PITA but worth it for me.
It was shipped to my house a few days after launch, as I had pre-ordered, but the camera just does not last beyond half an hour when recording 720p@120fps. This seems a bit... silly, but I was willing to chalk it up to launch day jitters. Nothing was fixed as time went on.
I have emailed support regularly, to the tune of once per week for the month and have received zero response. I wanted to just ask about why my battery dies so quickly and what would they suggest.
Nothing.
For a company with such a great product, they sure make a champion of their product and once-happy customer feel worthless.
Sorry for getting off track, it just bothers me still.