Drift Innovation Ghost XL Waterproof Action Camera and accessories

The Drift Ghost XL Waterproof Action Camera is very sturdily made, pretty easy to use and supported by a range of accessories, but it takes more than a handlebar mount to make a good action cam for cycling. The lack of image stabilisation is the main killer, but little about the design lends itself to bicycle use.

Combine a maximum resolution of 1,080p with zero image stabilisation and you get a picture that at the best of times is a little fuzzy, and at the worst is downright blurry.

Even riding on 32mm tyres and reasonably surfaced roads, its view from a road bike is neither especially attractive nor reliably good for evidence – number plates are illegible from further than 15-20m, and illegible all the way past if the road is rough.

Also, wind noise seems to overwhelm the microphone right from the off, leaving little but a roaring rumble as a soundtrack.

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The Ghost XL's shape, the positioning of its logos, and the orientation of its tiny LCD screen all imply you're expected to attach this on the side of something. The side of a motorcycle or motorsport helmet, for instance... big, secure things where a 150-odd-gram box will go practically unnoticed by the wearer. The big, secure mounting system will also be at home with high speeds and forces.

Combine this camera with the vibration-damping effects of a rider, 200kg of motorcycle and 100mm+ of suspension, and the Ghost XL might well produce reliably decent pictures. Bolt it to a 10kg road bike with the chunky, rigid but rather cheap looking metal bar mount, however, and it works poorly.

A mountain bike with anything but the longest, plushest travel would be worse, while a gravel bike is probably the worst option of all.

The bar mount (£24.99) is also very tall, raising the top of the camera 11cm above the centre of my bar, where it's extremely noticeable. It is secure, though.

Drift also does a vented helmet mount (£24.99) which, with its four straps and huge foam-backed baseplate, feels as overkill as the rest of this gear for cycling.

Once on it's absolutely secure, though the foam only works if your lid has a central bar – if it's a central vent then you risk the plastic edges rubbing. You'll also need to trim or tie up the massive strap ends to stop them dangling like dreadlocks around your head.

The camera's weight is very noticeable up high, and tends to drag your helmet around unless it's quite tight. The webbing straps can also interfere with MIPS layers.

Drift also does stick-on mounts (£16.99 and gently curved to suit a full face helmet), and a waterproof jack for an external microphone. This screws in and seals with an o-ring, and works well.

In use

The Ghost XL doesn't sense its orientation – you have to remember to physically twist the lens, though that does mean you can set any angle along its 300 degrees of movement. The live screen won't remind you where it's pointing either, as there isn't one.

The tiny LCD screen displays basic information (mode, resolution and battery life being the main things), but bar-mounted it's lying on its side and too small to read while riding anyway. What is useful is the colour coding of the backlight; green means you're on video mode, for instance, while purple is timelapse.

It also turns red when it's recording, and a red LED at the front flashes too (though it's only in clear view if you mount this camera sideways...).

The screen colours are bright and visible in daylight, so it's easy to see what the camera is up to. The inclusion of a cyan light (photoburst) as well as green (video) is irritating, though, as they can be confused.

Mode switching is easy, as the rearmost of the three big buttons cycles through them. The front one deals with on/off and record, and I like how it makes different sounds for starting and stopping recording.

Less pleasing is the shutter sound: very loud by default, it plays once per second the entire time you're filming in timelapse mode. Both the sounds and the gap between images can be adjusted, though.

The middle button scrolls through the settings for tweakage, and while it works if you're patient, it's easier to do via the Drift Life app on your phone. This also gives you a live view and lets you operate the camera remotely via wifi, though at that point you could just use your phone's camera instead...

Your phone might not be this waterproof, though, as the Ghost XL's IPX7 rating means it can spend 30 mins in a metre of water.

To avoid serious fisheye distortion, it's best to swap from the default 140-degree FOV (field of view) to one of the other two. I tried 90 degrees but settled on 115 for a bit more peripheral vision, as this setting has no distortion either. (Note: in the video it says 110 degrees, but it's 115).

More features

This thing has further features, but the manual is not entirely helpful. To use Dash Cam mode, for example, it says to 'connect it to a power supply' so it can be triggered by the ignition. You can just switch it on manually. It also says you can select Event Detection to automatically store crash footage, but it doesn't say how that works (turns out there's an accelerometer in there, which I found out by looking through the FAQs on Drift's site).

I tried dropping it from around 1m onto a rug and it worked – there's an 'Event' folder on the SD card (not provided, £9.99), and sure enough it safely stashed the clip in there. It certainly seems sensitive enough to detect a bicycle accident.

Then there's 'Clone Mode,' which lets you control this in synch with other Ghost cameras (XL, X or 4K models).

Value

We rarely test cameras at anywhere near this price – both the GoPro Hero9 Black and the DJI Osmo were just pennies from £330 when we reviewed them. GoPro has since moved on to the Hero10 (still £329.98), while the Osmo action cam seems to have been discontinued.

Things apparently move just as fast at the cheaper end of the market. The Techalogic DC-1 Dual Lens helmet cam tested in March 2020 is still out there for £179.95 and still records in two directions at once, but the RoadHawk Ride R+ Cycle Edition is no longer with us. That was £139.99 back in 2018 and had similarly poor sound, but at 62g and tubular it was at least unobtrusive.

Dave tested the Kitvision Venture 4K in 2019 and it's now available for far less than the original £149.99 – Argos is selling it for £79.99, and it's about £55 on Amazon – but whether it's improved with age is another matter. Dave gave it 2/10.

> How to buy the best bike camera — plus 7 of the best

In truth, even if things didn't move that fast in the world of cameras, the Drift XL would struggle – it's very similar to the Drift Stealth 2 HD that George tested in 2015. That's seven years ago. 

The two cams' maximum resolutions are the same, the absence of stabilisation is the same, and the modes are the same. In fact, the Stealth 2 had a much larger screen and was lighter. George loved it back when the GoPro Hero 4 ruled the roost, image stabilisation hadn't appeared, and the iPhone 6 was as good as it got.

Overall

This is a big, sturdy camera with big, sturdy mounts and some potentially useful features for cars and motorcycles. Despite the (big, sturdy) addition of bar and helmet mounts for bicycles, though, little about the Ghost XL makes it particularly good for cycling.

Verdict

Rugged and pretty easy to use, but bad sound and unstabilised visuals don't suit cycling use