I've been a sucker for action cams for some time, spending (wasting) far too much money in the elusive quest for the ideal camera, that none of them ever measured up too.
There was always something not quite right.
The unbranded Chinese cameras offer great value and most give high quality images, but the after sales service if you have a problem is worrying, and there does seem to be a high percentage of units failing.
I finally bit the bullet and was almost ready to splash out on a Gopro when the Sony AS range came out.
As someone has already mentioned on here, the "Techmoan" blog reviews were a big help, impartial, detailed reviews by an independent guy who really knows how to test them and show samples, rather than just giving his impressions.
His reviews got me interested in the Sony AS15, and then the AS30 came out, which is the one I bought. Best price was just over £200, and just over £100 for the wrist remote control.
Yes, fairly expensive, but for me it really is the perfect setup at last.
The same wide variety of mounts and accessories as the Gopro, but it also has "steadyshot" stabilisation and built in GPS.
The steadyshot feature alone justifies this camera for me, riding, walking, canoeing, sailing, it makes all the difference, automatically removing most of the jerkiness during the initial recording stage.
The GPS is great for bike rides, recording speed and location synchronised to the video, so that the Sony editing software can then overlay a virtual dashboard and route diagram on to the video which is then saved at 1080p for playing on anything as a conventional 274 video file. The example screenshot shown below from youtube is one of the more brash "video game" themes, but they do have more reserved layouts that overlay the data without blocking out so much screen!
The camera can be monitored and controlled via wifi remotely via my android phone, but I've now bought the wrist remote which is much more convenient to use, and with much longer battery life.
http://www.sony-asia.com/productcategory/cam-action-cam
![action cam remote viewfinder.png](/forum/data/attachments/6/6285-123bba83e75d58a37cae89aa4a1e5713.jpg)