The Muvi HD10+ video camera is going to get a lot of interest from riders who want to capture their riding on a budget, and for £150 you get a lot for your money. It has all the features you’d expect to find in a sports-specific camcorder and, unlike most headcams, comes complete with a 4GB MicroSD card and a massive amount of attachments and sticky pads.
As the name suggests, the Muvi HD10+ records in high definition and you can switch between 1,080p (Full HD) and 720p (at 60 frames per second). There's also an HDMI output on the camera so you can watch your ride on your HD TV straight from the camera. You can charge the camera using a USB cable, but we found this took quite a long time.
The quality of the footage, as with many other headcams on the market, depends greatly on the light conditions and where and how you’ve mounted your camera. The Muvi HD10+ has so many options it’s tricky to know where to start. We mainly used the chest strap because it gives a more accurate representation of your ride (especially how steep the road or trail gets) and it also means you don’t need to stick anything to your helmet.
The chest strap is a bit unusual, though, in that it doesn’t offer any stretch. This is great in terms of quality footage because the camera is firmly held and doesn’t wobble about like it does in some chest mounts, such as GoPro’s for example. But if you are going for a sprint, it's probably best to avoid using it – we found that the lack of room for expanding your chest can severely restrict your breathing.
The other attachment we were quite excited to see in the kit bundle was the bar mount. However, because the Muvi is slim and tall, with the lens at the top centre of the body and the mounting thread at the bottom, on the particular mount we used there was lots of camera-shake. This may not be noticeable at the time, but we found ourselves feeling a little seasick after checking back our footage. Unless you live somewhere with perfectly smooth roads/trails or ride a particularly slim-tubed bike, this mount won’t be much use to you; we’d rather use the sticky pads and spend time cleaning them off again.
That said, if you are looking for a secondary camera for a web edit, the bar mount could provide you with some different point-of-view shots, but take care to get it tight enough.
Unlike a lot of other on-board cameras, the Muvi HD10+ also features a small screen on the back, which allows you to line up and review the action on the trail. The controls are glove friendly, making playback and recording a simple task.
The simple Muvi HD10+ remote control