Drift Innovation Ghost XL Waterproof Action Camera and accessories

I have a couple of generations of this Drift camera and find them excellent for my purposes.

I use it for cycling and motorcycling.

The key feature for me is the size/shape/mounting - it is slim and can be mounted flat on a helmet to create a small form factor. This is even more apparent when motorcycling at speed..... it has less effect on helmet drag and does not pull your head off!  I have never considered a GoPro type for this reason.

I mount on helmets as that then allows me to look around and hence  capture events from all directions.

Picture quality is good, weather proofing is good, battery life is good.

My only regret was not using it the day I was hit head-on by an overtaking car on the wrong side of the road. This would have invalidated the absurd lies peddled by the driver and made it easy for the legal profession (CPS + lawyers) to do their simple job [today they are incapable of doing proper analysis of this crash].

I'd rather spend another £20 and get a refurbished GoPro 6 Black from eBay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184550787153?epid=9042684822

I use one as my rear bike camera.

https://youtube.com/user/TheJimvt I use one of these mounted neatlyon the side of my helmet using the sticky curved mount, or on the bar for leisure rides.
Whilst I'd love the image quality of a GoPro, I can't justify the expense, or the whacking great helmet mounting, or the battery life. I've reported 113 drivers this year using this camera.

I own one of these I have it mounted below my handlebars for recording close passes and bad driving. There is a single reason it hasn't been replaced, the exemplary battery life. This is a huge plus and to not make a big deal of it in this review is a little disappointing.

The footage is good enough to make out registrations it's waterproof and just keeps going. In the same time I've had two faulty cycliq cameras and a gopro hero 9 which barely lasted an hour.

The microphone is trash, it has no stabilisation. But in terms of a long lasting camera to report bad driving, sadly nothing out there beats it right now.

I'm surprised how poor the footage is. Looking at the Omnivision datasheet, the sensor looks on paper to be more capable than the results.

The 'jellyvision' effect is not due to a lack of image stabilisation, but the use of a rolling shutter rather than a global shutter.

I use one of these. I have it helmet mounted using the versatile standard 1/4" thread on the body so it sits on the helmet and is quite aero certainly much better than the  Apemen gopro type that I used before and because it is close to the helmet it doesn't seem heavy. Haven't tried the self adhesive mount yet. It gets reg plates in good light, I think helmet mounting helps here as you can follow the car with your head which tends to steady it out a bit. Low light, forget it. The main attraction for me is the 8 hours battery life which means charge it after every use and format the card after viewing the close passes, then turn it on before the ride and forget it. I use continuous recording which means 30min segments and I haven't noticed any gaps. 64GB card hasn't run out on me yet. Claims to be water proof but haven't tried it in a deluge yet. Seems OK in light rain.

Others have mentioned the ability to connect an external mic using a waterproof adaptor. Haven't tried this yet but it's looking like it may be an option for low light plates.

So far very pleased with it. I wasn't expecting it to last from what I read on the web about battery charging problems. If it is going to fail I hope it does it before it's a year old but so far so good.

I use one of these mounted below my handlebars to record my rides in the event of close passes / poor driving etc and dont usually have a problem reading number plates etc from the footage (for the avoidance of doubt I'm not a camera warrior, i just want to be able to submit evidence should the need arise).

The 9 hour battery life is useful as it means I dont have to change batteries or use an external power pack except on very long rides. The horizonal form factor works well on a bike, whether handlebar, frame or helmet mounted and the rotating lens means it can be mounted at any angle.

However, the real achilles heel is long periods of steady rain or drizzle, which given enough time can work their way past the waterproofing and destroy the electronics. My first camera died like this and as it was just out of warranty Drift support couldn't/wouldn't help. There's no external waterproof case for it (unlike the Ghost X). Drift support can be hit-and-miss and is always slow too.

This review and the comments are very interesting to me. I’m eager to buy a front-facing camera: my current reliance on solely a rear camera led to a lack of police action on a very dangerous overtake (see NMOTD 657). However, I simply can’t identify one that provides what I’m looking for. 

My use-case is thus: recreational rider wanting a camera to capture any poor driving encountered. I ride only during daylight (I’m not a commuter), so integrated lights are unnecessary. Also, no need for any fancy video features – I’m not recording to regale my friends with my thrilling escapades. I’m not quite a weight-weenie, but I do want the camera to be light, unobtrusive, and ideally not un-aerodynamic. I need it to be able to record for 3+ hours and have “dash-cam” looping. I would happily pay up to £200, and perhaps even up to £300 if durability were excellent.

I briefly possessed the Drift Ghost X (it appeared on paper to tick most of the boxes, especially when mounted using this system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErcAeK6q4f8), but it froze and then died before I had ever completed the initial set up. Judging from a trawl of the internet, reliability with Drift cameras is a huge problem, so I got a refund rather than a replacement. Also, I’ve since discovered that people have noted a problem with missing seconds of footage between sections of recording in dash-cam mode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jmpL2xcw8U), which immediately rules it out of contention for me.

Go-Pros just don’t have the battery life. I’m happy with my rear Cycliq Fly6, but the Fly12 is too expensive and big given that it incorporates (from my perspective) a completely superfluous front light.

I’m puzzled that no one has yet either spotted the need for or been able to design a camera that fits the use-case described above. Perhaps it’s not as attractive a market segment as I’m imagining it would be.

I think 4 is generous, judging it for cycling purposes.  For capturing registrations, it is almost completely useless - you might get a legible view of the reg. if the vehicle is travelling at 20 m.p.h. or less, ideally stationary.  If it's mounted on the handlebars, even shouting out the reg. is no help, as you can't hear anything at all above the roaring background sound.  Mounting it on a helmet solves that problem, but it's heavy and the poor video produced is still the main problem.  It's no use even if you only want it to watch your rides and not for reporting purposes - I feel travel sick after watching the videos for a while, and I don't even normally get travel sick.

It's not designed for a handlebar but for a helmet
A number of nmotd have been with this or another in the same line.
I think 4 is rather harsh given size, weight and battery life.

Mounted on the handlebars I guess most of the vibration is in the vertical axis. Is it not possible to design a mount tuned to damp those vibrations for the mass of the camera?

I don't own one of these but the review seems overly harsh to me.  It may be valid compared to action cams with a fraction of the battery life but apart from the Image Stabilisation and the lack of a light it compares well to the Cycliq Fly 12.

weight : lighter

size: smaller

battery life : much longer 

resolution : same

price :almost half the price.

The mount is fugly but cycliqs version break easily. Aftermarket combo mounts with a go pro attachment are ten a penny.

The wind noise is irrelevant as long as it captures the post pass altercation or horn toots.

Also the reviewer neglected to mention there's a 4k version with Stabilisation but is happy to moan that it's an old product!

Any chance this can be given to a Fly 12 user for a second opinion?  Several forumites seem to recommend this camera