Review on Waterproof Action Camera - Drift Ghost XL (Black) by Josh Whitehead

I really wanted to like this camera. I am a long time customer of Drift Innovation and have previously had three cameras - the HD170 Stealth, the Drift HD and the Ghost-S. The only thing I've always wished for was better battery life. The Ghost-S was the best, around 2-2.5 hours depending on the conditions. So when I heard about the Ghost XL's 9-hour battery life, I was intrigued. I figured that might be enough to justify the 60fps loss that the Ghost-S has. Unfortunately, I've found that it's not the same as just taking the Ghost-S, dropping 60 fps and giving it 9 hours of battery life. If that were the case it would be a great camera, but it's not. The picture quality of the recordings is worse than the DVR on my bike and I didn't expect it to be an action cam. To be fair, it's not terrible, but slightly better than the Ghost XL. The video is so blurry that if you pause the video you can see multiple ghostly images behind things like light poles or trees. I don't think that's what Drift Innovation had in mind when they used the Ghost brand name. The image is also subject to significant pixelation/blocking, making it look more like a cheap digital video camera you'd buy for a kid than a $149 MSRP action camera. I tried many different settings including bit rate and saturation levels but nothing helped. I even tried using the suction cup mount on my windshield which is rock solid and still produces the same poor image quality. This is in stark contrast to the crisp, detailed image I get with my Ghost-S. I think that's the difference between a $249 camera and a $149 camera. Another problem I had with this camera is that the rotating lens is so tight that you can't fine tune it because you have to really tighten it. This is to get it moving, and when you do that it often goes way past the pivot where you want it. This makes it pretty much impossible to get a truly smooth image without sheer luck. [UPDATE] I did a battery life test, just installed it on my desk and left recording until the battery died and the recording stopped after 7 hours 27 minutes. . While still pretty impressive, it's 1 hour 33 minutes shy of the advertised 9 hours. Finally, and this is a minor thing but worth mentioning - I could never get the camera to recognize the storage device on my iMac. catalina Even after two firmware updates, it's never recognized, meaning I have to pull out the microSD and put it in my reader to pull out the files. It's sad too, because I love what they've done with the huge battery and transition to a small screen, even if you forgo the built-in Live View. I didn't even check the battery life, because it's of no use if the picture quality is bad. It looks like the pinnacle of drift innovation came with the Ghost-S. I steered clear of Ghost 4K because reviews were consistently bad, and I hoped that wouldn't happen with the Ghost XL as 1080p is the older and more established technology. While I'm not a fan of the GoPro Hero form factor, I might just have to start looking at this line of products because they keep improving their cameras with their insane image stabilization and image quality. Drift innovation needs to go back to its roots and innovate again. Overall I gave it 3 stars because it's just an average street camera. It has some nice features like a DVR, claimed battery life, form factor, and waterproofing without an outer case, but picture quality is below average. i will send it back