Drift HD Camera Review

The Drift HD has some nice features for a rugged sports cam, reviews say -- especially its built-in LCD viewscreen, which (unlike most sports cams) allows you to preview what you're shooting. But its video and audio quality lag so far behind its rivals from GoPro, Contour and Ion that experts don't recommend the Drift HD.

Ease of use

LCD screen helps frame your shot. "There's a lot of really great stuff about the Drift HD," says Brent Rose at Gizmodo.com -- largely because it's really easy to use. "For starters, it's the only [sports cam] with an integrated LCD screen, so you can see your shot before you start recording (or during). This also makes it adjustable on the fly." The lens rotates 300 degrees, too, making it easy to get your shot right-side-up no matter how the camera is mounted.

It's also the only sports cam in our report that comes with a remote control. "This is most useful when wanting to trigger the camera from a safe distance away from the action," says Scott Kennedy at CameraLabs.com. The remote "worked on the first try around 70 percent of the time," says Darren Murph, testing for Engadget.com. "And while Drift claims a five meter range, we found it far more useful when we were within three meters of the device."

Although Murph "mightily appreciated" the little 1.5-inch LCD screen, he says it "is of fairly poor quality ... we found it rather difficult to see under direct sunlight."

At just 4 inches long and about 4 ounces, the Drift HD is just as small and light as its rivals. Like most other sports cams, it comes with an assortment of mounts -- a threaded tripod mount, goggle mount and curved and flat sticky mounts.

Performance

Video and sound quality 'fall flat.' Video and sound quality aren't impressive, critics say. "Video quality is where the Drift falls flat," says Rose at Gizmodo.com. "It's easily the worst of the group" in his four-sports-cam shootout. "Images are not at all sharp, and there's noise all over everything (especially in the night shot, but really, everywhere). It also handles contrast very poorly. Colors are way off. Just very, very muddy."

Engadget.com's Murph likes the video a little bit better, but he calls it just "decent." Bright sun "would result in a shot that was simply blown out," and the on-board microphone is "next to useless. When mounted on our dashboard, the mic wouldn't pick up our voices just a few feet away." Rose gets a "weird, shrieking sound" in his audio.

The Drift HD can shoot 9-megapixel still photos. None of our professional sources tests the photo quality, but Kennedy points out that the top-rated (and comparably priced) GoPro HD Hero2 (*Est. $300) shoots higher-resolution, 11-megapixel photos.

Drift doesn't list any battery life estimates, but Murph gets "around 50 to 80 minutes of 1080p footage on a full charge, largely depending on how much idle time we had between each clip."

Durability

Waterproof to 30 meters -- if you buy the $45 waterproof case. Unlike the GoPro cameras, the Drift HD charges $45 extra for a waterproof housing (GoPro includes one) and it's waterproof to only 30 meters (versus 60 meters for the GoPro).

"Without a special housing, it's only billed as water-resistant, not water-proof, but a) it floats, and b) we submerged it under two feet of water for an hour and it came out just fine. Nice," writes Rose at Gizmodo.com.

Murph says "the unit feels sturdy enough, and the twistable lens does a phenomenal job of holding tight once put into place." However, critics haven't abuse-tested the Drift HD as thoroughly as they have the tough GoPro cameras.

Appearance

Slim and streamlined. The Drift HD "looks sleeker than the HD Hero2," says Kennedy at CameraLabs.com. It's a slim, streamlined rectangle (about 1 inch by 2 inches by 4 inches) that keeps a low profile against a helmet or goggles.

"There's no doubt that this thing's mighty compact for what it does," says Murph at Engadget.com. Reviews say the Drift HD looks pretty stealthy, comparable to the bullet-shaped Contour cameras -- and more discreet than the boxy GoPro cameras.

The bottom line

Despite its user-friendly LCD screen, the Drift HD trails its rivals in head-to-head tests at CameraLabs.com and Gizmodo.com. For the same price, experts prefer the GoPro HD Hero2, with its superior toughness and image/sound quality.