97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars A rugged and versatile POV cam that is not just for extreme sports, March 16, 2011
By Nathan Andersen “film lover, philosophy profe. (Florida) See all my reviews
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I’ve had a chance to play around with the new Drift HD170 Stealth camera for some weeks now and made a fast video just to show some things I have tried with it. What makes it “stealth,” I guess, is the new sleek black design (the casing of the unit is made from a lasting black rubberized plastic). The bright orange face of the older model did probably call many attention to itself, and for many uses (i.E. Stealth uses) that is a disadvantage. While the older model’s bright colored face made it look fun, I think I do favor the hard black and can see why they opted for it. The feature that makes this camera really stand out from other alike POV or “extreme sports” cameras, though, is the onboard LCD screen, that lets you to see what you’re going to be capturing on the spot, so you may be able to arrange the camera just as you like; it also lets you to go through the menu on the spot and change alternatives based on your needs now. (You can set things up in the menu so that the LCD turns off after a minute of being unused so as to prolong the life of the battery).

What’s struck me is that the real value of this camcorder is its mix of a rugged and lasting design with its versatility. It is emphasized for use with extreme sports but it is useful pretty much anywhere you would not risk another more fragile camera. It is water and weather tolerant not water evidence so you could use it in light rain, maybe throughout a hurricane if it was securely mounted, but surely in extreme conditions where you’d be worried about a regular camcorder. (I’ve heard that Drift novelty the company that makes these will be coming out with a completely waterproof case for the Stealth many time soon so that you may add cliff diving and snorkeling to the list of extreme sports you may be able to catch subjectively with the Stealth) The camera comes with three different mounts one that you may secure to any kind of narrow belt (and it comes with an elastic belt), one that you may put on a handlebar, and one that you may secure to a helmet with the included velcro adhesives. It is easy to orient the camera, if you have got it mounted in an odd spot the shooting orientation may be changed simply by rotating the lens manually, and the fast release mount may also be rotated so that the unit may be oriented but you like with respect to the mount.

I’m not most of an extreme sports man but I can see where this could come in useful for different types of video projects other than extreme sports, and I tried to show some possible uses in the video. You may be able to mount it on a bike, a motorcycle, a skateboard, or on a 12 foot long paint pole elevated over a car (as I did in the attached video, using the handlebar mount attached until the end of the pole). Clearly, I would not want to put my Canon VIXIA HFS10 over a long pole like that because if it dropped or bumped into something it could nearly surely be damaged. While the Stealth isn’t damage evidence it is many more rugged than a regular camera, and so it works great in lots of precarious situations. I used to think that when I needed an extreme shot the best choice could be a comparatively inexpensive camera like my Flip, that I could more pay for to damaged than my nicer camera but with this one the risk of serious damage is considerably diminished.

You can shoot decent photos (5 megapixels and they look good, but as you’d expect on a device that is tailored for video catch they do not really compare to the pictures you’d catch on a compact camera in this price range expect some notches up from the quality you’d catch on a phone and you will not be disappointed), and cool time lapse sequences (with shooting intervals from three to 30 seconds apart), plus it takes amazingly good HD video for such a small camera. It is not as nice or as versatile as my Canon, but the video is at least as good or better than what I can catch on my Flip Mino HD plus it is got a much wider lens, which is ideal for “point of view” shooting. At 720p it captures a 170 degree view, and it is got some a fisheye effect which is kind of nice, it seems cool with POV sports footage but may be efficient in other applications also. At 1080p it captures a somewhat narrower range of 120 degrees, and there is less distortion, but not as many alternatives for frame rates. At 720p you may be able to shoot at frame rates from 25fps to 60, and shooting at 60fps lets you to slow the footage down in an editing program without things looking jerky as they could if you’d shot at a regular 30fps , then played at an efficient 15 frames per second. At 1080p you may be able to shoot either 25 or 30fps. (You may also shoot standard meaning video if you like). The video is encoded with H.264 in a Quicktime (.Mov) wrapper so it is easy to import and play or edit in a range of applications.

One other nice feature is that the set comes with a remote control “watch” you may be able to wear it on your wrist (it’s got a velcro band) and it has two buttons: for record and stop. There is some a time lag on the stop function it takes a couple seconds and on occasion I have found I have had to press the button twice to get it to react, but otherwise it works quite well. The weak element on the camera is the onboard mike it does not catch clear sound at all. It is noisy and could really only work as reference and not playback. In other words if you spoke into the mike or near the mike you could be able to hear what you’d said presuming you were not on a motorcycle, or free falling from high altitudes and it may assist you to remember something but you would not want to think about as well as the audio in a finished video. The major reason for the weakness of the mike looks to be that its input is protected by a rubber seal to ensure the water resistance of the unit. The real value of this camera is in capturing video you would not be able (or willing) to catch in other ways. There’s another choice with this camera that not all cameras of this type let, which is to plug in an external microphone but I am pretty sure the input is proprietary, which means you either have to purchase the mike from Drift or you must purchase one of the input cables for your mike from them. When you do use an external mike you must keep the rear hatch of the camera open and Drift sells a kind of silicon boot to help keep things sealed and protected when the mike is connected and the door is open.

The Stealth isn’t a one size fits all camcorder that will meet every need and would not by any stretch replace a regular camcorder for common shooting, particularly given its fixed, very large lens and its substandard onboard mike but it can catch pictures you’d never dream of trying to catch with your standard camcorder. If all you want to do is catch extreme sports from the point of view of the athlete, or another extreme pictures that could put an common camera at risk, this could be a good choice. For someone like me, who only rarely has a need for “extreme sports footage,” I know I will not use this all the time, but I am happy to have it in my “bag of tricks” because, as I think my little video shows, it is a versatile camera that can catch many cool and pretty good quality pictures and video that could fit nicely into a large range of different types of video projects.

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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars I have owned them all and this is the BEST by far!!, June 22, 2011
By Lamonster See all my reviews () This review is from: Drift novelty HD170 Stealth Action Camera with HD Recording, 4x Digital Zoom and 1.5 Inch LCD Screen (Black) (Electronics) I have owned just about every helmet cam on the market and I sell the GoPro HD Hero on my site and this is by far the best camera I have owned to date.

The thing I like about it most is the easy use. The menu is like any other PAS camera instead of hieroglyphics like the GoPro and yes I have the LCD on my GoPro and it is still a ache to use. It does take great video but no better than the drift.

I love that I can change the mic on the drift and pretty much turn it off if I want to and I can add a remote mic. I have one but have still to use it. No more clanking from the mount like the GoPro either.

The battery outlast the GoPro and it looks to have great video compression. Long videos have pretty small file size. I took a 48:00 video and it was just under three gig.

About the only thing I do not care for is the helmet mount. I have not used it still but it is not that clean of a mount, I do like the GoPro better for that. I wound up put a RAM ball on mine and that is pretty much all I use. All and all I love this thing.

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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of five stars Good idea Poor Quality Control, July 13, 2011
By S. Napper (New Zealand) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) () This review is from: Drift novelty HD170 Stealth Action Camera with HD Recording, 4x Digital Zoom and 1.5 Inch LCD Screen (Black) (Electronics) Camera arrived and straight out of the box had a flawed microphone. Had a play with it for some days waiting to hear back from Drift Support and found the picture quality to be excellent. Really liked the good clear pictures and colour was spot on. Though, I soon found that a completely charged battery could drain overnight if left in the camera (even though the camera has been switched off).

Thinking I just had a dud unit, and given the quality of picture, I decided to go through the returns procedure and had a substitute shipped out.

Were excellent in how they dealt with the return and substitute. No complaints on that front (Drift on the other hand, took more than a week for their Support people to answer to my emails to tell me that it was flawed , then they passed the buck back to Amazon).

Replacement unit arrived today and upon switching it on I notice the picture is totally full, making everything appear like a psychedelic music video from the 70′s. Back to emailing Drift Support. This time I will not wait for a week for their answer. If I have not heard back by tomorrow it is on it is way back for a refund this time.

You really have to ask yourself where is the quality control? Does Drift not test each unit before it is packaged?

Two cameras and two different problems straight out of the box.

It’s disappointing because the Drift is the only one of the top three (GoPro/Contour/Drift) that offers external mic and reviewing screen building.

I will not risk another substitute.

Looks like I will be switching my allegiance to one of the other two brands.

UPDATE: Received a GoPro HD this week and most impressed with the quality of build and the video taken to date. The mounting system is a little fiddly but not completely unusable. Changing camera settings was uncomfortable at 1st but after clipping on the LCD BacPac it was more simple.

I’ve just bought a Contour HD also ($138) and will test that out when it arrives.

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