Best 3 channel dashcam? VIOFO A139 or Vantrue N4?

JackieJones

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Hey guys,

I’m in the market for a 3 channel dashcam and can’t decide between the new VIOFO A139 and Vantrue N4. Most features such as wireless, app, parking mode etc are not important to me. What’s most important is video quality. Comparing sample videos from both dashcams, it’s hard to figure out which has the better video quality. What do you guys think? Thanks!
 
The video is the same resolution from both so you won't see a huge difference on Youtube after its extra compression.

I don't think there are many people who have tried both side by side, so a proper comparison is going to be difficult.

Generally, Viofo dashcams use better components and have much better support and firmware upgrades, some of which is available from this website as well as direct from Viofo. I would expect the detail on the A139 to be significantly better, also Vantrue tend to run low bitrates, but I don't know about the N4.

You might find that having the internal camera separate from the front camera to be very useful when you come to mount it, also you need to be able to see the screen on the Vantrue, while on the Viofo you only need to be able to reach the buttons and hear the voice, which makes mounting easier.

Just on image quality, that suction mount on the Vantrue is going to vibrate/wobble a bit, can be an issue on higher resolution cameras, the A139 is very stable and needs less space since it doesn't hang down.

I'm very happy with my A139, and most other owners seem to be too!
 
Another vote for the A139 for similar reasons, especially the vastly better form-factor and factory support ;)

Phil
 
Thanks guys, I was leaning towards the VIOFO.

Running the A139 in 3 channel mode with maximum bitrate, will there be any difference in video quality over the normal bitrate after both videos are uploaded to YouTube?
 
Running the A139 in 3 channel mode with maximum bitrate, will there be any difference in video quality over the normal bitrate after both videos are uploaded to YouTube?
Probably hard to see the difference with a direct upload, but if you are going to edit the video and do any color grading then the extra bitrate will suddenly show up as a significant improvement.
 
You should use the best / highest possible bitrate no matter what camera,recording time length should be targeted with memory card size, and really the A139 should have a 256GB card.
 
Hey guys,

I’m in the market for a 3 channel dashcam and can’t decide between the new VIOFO A139 and Vantrue N4......Comparing sample videos from both dashcams, it’s hard to figure out which has the better video quality.
Personally, what I would do is, get the A139, but from Amazon, try it for 29 days and if you don't like it, return it on day 30. No loss. Then order the N4 and go thru the same cycle. Again, no loss. Even better, order them both so you can compare side by side, then return the least desirable one. There are plenty of options in your favor...
 
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The ethics of purchasing from Amazon with the intention of returning the product are questionable at best, and downright dirty at worst. And with these two dashcams it's unnecessary. Returned products cannot be sold as "new" again, so the seller, manufacturer, or both will sustain a loss which has to be compensated for by increasing the selling price to allow for those events. That hurts everybody everywhere :mad:

Almost all of us here who do dashcam reviews and beta-testing post vids on YouTube. Those all suffer from YouTube's compression techniques but can give a general idea of what you'll get. And most of us also post links to raw video of these so that you can see exactly what the cams do just the same as if you took the vid yourself. If you can't find raw vids, ask the member who did the review or test- most of us will gladly send you a raw file link on request :cool: My AQ139 vids all have links to my raw files which I placed on Google Drive for anyone to access. If you want something in specific conditions just PM me and I'll try to get it for you.

Buyer's remorse is never a valid reason to return a product which is why many store disallow it. Open return policies like Amazon has are meant to handle non-performance issues and outright lies in the product description and while it can be misused, when enough people do that those policies or the product prices will change leaving us all worse off in the end :cry:

Do your research before buying then you'll most likely get the product you want the first time around which is easier and better for everyone ;) Don't go cheating the system just because it's possible.

Phil
 
In east of Europe or at least in my country people consider that is very normal to mount a dashcam and return it in 14 or 30 days used and ask for full money return.
They consider that is normal a company to have loses because the companies bosses are rich and deserve this. This is a communist thinking.
 
In east of Europe or at least in my country people consider that is very normal to mount a dashcam and return it in 14 or 30 days used and ask for full money return.
They consider that is normal a company to have loses because the companies bosses are rich and deserve this. This is a communist thinking.
LOL... it is that kind of attitude that makes it easy for business owners to empathize less with the average and below average and care less.

I am in analysis paralysis right now as well. I liked my Vantrue... the n4 looks great
- you have to buy it all separately,
the GPS mount... and
HW kit...
+ you can take it with you. (except for the rear camera) and use it anywhere.
- less mounting location options

One thing I do not like about Vantrue is that they never show the cables in their advertisements. They ruin the aesthetics.

Viofo a139
+ has more mounting positions due to separate cameras. (Especially helpful where the black dots are on the windsheild as they will not hold a suction mount._
+ blocks view less
+ able to get video immediately on phone via wifi
- due to mounting, requires semipermanent bond to windsheild... although extra mount included... hard to use in a rental car.
+ wires look nicer than the Vantrue.
~ is it hard to get a mini coax cable with the correct ends less than 1' to streamline install?

I would think the Viofo would get much hotter than the Vantrue. I made a white foam cover for my N2Pro that blocked most of the sun from the dashcam. I will not be able to do that for the viofo.

The weather in Charlotte gets pretty hot in the summer. I am definitely worried about the heat.

Not sure about the parking monitoring and the battery drain. Hard to believe a dashcam could drain a car battery in a day, much less a week! I drive a prius... and a drained battery is especially troubling.
Any other thoughts?

With Amazon you can get an Asurion warranty. They are pretty good about paying out... so far. Thinking I may step outside my comfort zone and get the Viofo even though I love Vantrue... plus the warranty. If it does die, I can get the next gen Vantrue... and find a decent cheap dashcam for rental cars and put a permanent mount in the girlfriends car for swapping???

Any points to consider that I have not covered?
 
~ is it hard to get a mini coax cable with the correct ends less than 1' to streamline install?
You would have to use aftermarket ones, not sure what is available in very short lengths, but it is a standard connector size, often used for earplugs.

The weather in Charlotte gets pretty hot in the summer. I am definitely worried about the heat.
@SawMaster who posted above lives just a little south of you and hasn't had any problems, but it does depend a bit on how hot your vehicle gets. Should be no issues except the possibility of parking mode having shutdowns over midday in summer sunshine.

I am in analysis paralysis right now as well. I liked my Vantrue... the n4 looks great
I liked the Vantrue I had too, but there is no question that the Viofo cameras are significantly better, and the support is considerably better. There was no excuse for firmware updates adding more bugs than they removed!
 
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and find a decent cheap dashcam for rental cars and put a permanent mount in the girlfriends car for swapping???
If you are installing 3 channels then swapping vehicles is never going to be easy, unless you just take the front unit when not in your main vehicle.

You can get a general purpose suction mount with a flat plate and stick the main unit of the A139 to that, then it is easy to swap vehicles, and also a bit better for hot weather, but it introduces vibration to the image so I don't normally recommend it.

I actually keep my old Vantrue for rental cars since the suction mount on that is quite decent so it is the most convenient for that use.
 
If you are installing 3 channels then swapping vehicles is never going to be easy, unless you just take the front unit when not in your main vehicle.

You can get a general purpose suction mount with a flat plate and stick the main unit of the A139 to that, then it is easy to swap vehicles, and also a bit better for hot weather, but it introduces vibration to the image so I don't normally recommend it.

I actually keep my old Vantrue for rental cars since the suction mount on that is quite decent so it is the most convenient for that use.

Just realized that the GPS adapter for the Vantrue N4 is a stick on. So it can be mounted on the Frits... keep the old suction cup adapter for other cars.

The Viofo comes with two adapter plates for the main unit. I would only take the main unit with... the other cameras would be semi-permanent mounted.
It had also occurred to me that one could mount them with velcro. *Use Velcro (double looped like for the EZPass) and then just temp velcro another windsheild.
 
It had also occurred to me that one could mount them with velcro. *Use Velcro (double looped like for the EZPass) and then just temp velcro another windsheild.
Yes, some people do that, works well for your situation.

The Viofo comes with two adapter plates for the main unit.
Not sure I understand that. There are two sticky pads supplied, but they are 3M not reusable sticky pads. There is only one mount supplied, but you can probably buy a 2nd mount fairly easily by contacting Viofo, they seem happy to supply things like that, and have some of the other mounts available in their website shop.
 
The ethics of purchasing from Amazon with the intention of returning the product are questionable at best, and downright dirty at worst. And with these two dashcams it's unnecessary. Returned products cannot be sold as "new" again, so the seller, manufacturer, or both will sustain a loss which has to be compensated for by increasing the selling price to allow for those events. That hurts everybody everywhere :mad:

Almost all of us here who do dashcam reviews and beta-testing post vids on YouTube. Those all suffer from YouTube's compression techniques but can give a general idea of what you'll get. And most of us also post links to raw video of these so that you can see exactly what the cams do just the same as if you took the vid yourself. If you can't find raw vids, ask the member who did the review or test- most of us will gladly send you a raw file link on request :cool: My AQ139 vids all have links to my raw files which I placed on Google Drive for anyone to access. If you want something in specific conditions just PM me and I'll try to get it for you.

Buyer's remorse is never a valid reason to return a product which is why many store disallow it. Open return policies like Amazon has are meant to handle non-performance issues and outright lies in the product description and while it can be misused, when enough people do that those policies or the product prices will change leaving us all worse off in the end :cry:

Do your research before buying then you'll most likely get the product you want the first time around which is easier and better for everyone ;) Don't go cheating the system just because it's possible.

Phil
There is absolutely nothing unethical about ordering an A139 from Amazon (or whoever also offers such 30-day return warranty) and testing it for 29 days and returning it on the 30th day if it doesn't work for you. There's a reason why companies offer 30-day warranties, and not 3-day, 5 days or 10 days, and that's because they know some customers will take longer than others to make a decision. There are also a plethora of other reasons, such as accounting for customers who might had been away or on a 2-wk vacation during the 30 days. There is also nothing unethical about ordering and trying their N4, and returning it if it does not met your expectations. Of course, if it takes you only one day to know the A139 or the N4 won't work for you, then return it on day 2 or simply keep it for 28 more days and don't forget to return it before day 30. If that was the business offer that Amazon (or whoever) extended to you and to which you agreed and are thus entitled to, I fail to see how there would be anything "unethical" about taking advantage of such offer by trying the items for whatever amount of time within that 30 day allotted period you find necessary.

THERE IS, of course, a problem with the consumer who interprets my recommendation above as implying order it with the premeditated intention to use it for free and then return it as used as and as beat up as possible so you intentionally cause a loss to the seller, something I never recommended, suggested or even as little as alluded to. I was stunned to read someone claim something tantamount to claiming to be able to read my mind ("Buyer's remorse is never a valid reason to return a product") and sad to read how someone can respond to my comments with advise against a practice that didn't enter my mind even in the most remote of it forms ("don't go cheating the system.."). I am sorry to say it but this reminds me of the words of someone I know who used to say "thieves judge based on their own conscience as thieves"... Again, it's all about industry standards: in some countries, places or regions the offers will be better than in others but its because it takes companies more effort to entice customers from those countries, places or regions to purchase unless the offers are better. I may not be a dashcam reviewer or a beta-tester posting vids on YouTube, but you can bet your money I like to spend my money wisely and be a smart and educated consumer because, as one retailer's ads used to say, "educated consumers are their best customers".

Companies don't care about ethics, they care about the bottom line, money. Likewise, as a consumer, I could care less about ethics, and care about the bottom line on my pocket, that is, who is the seller who will save me the most money. A company's job is to deliver the least product for the most amount of money while still staying in business, and a consumer's job is to obtain the most product for the least amount of money while still not violation any laws. That's the way it is, the way it has always been and it's the way it will always be, and any consumer who doesn't understand that simple principle is condemned to be dollar foolish. Likewise, companies that don't run their business by that principle are destined to be overrun by those companies that do understand it.

Thanks to data mining, companies know which customers they can extend certain offers to (e.g., 30-day no-questions-asked returns) and which customers not. If you, for example, spend US$10,000/yr purchasing from, say, Amazon, you will be more highly coveted as a customer than one who only spends some $100/yr. It's the same concept that banks, mortgage companies and car leasing companies have been using the extend credit for ages. Thanks to data mining you will also be courted more aggressively (i.e., with offers of a larger selection of products priced over a larger price range qualifying for their 30-day money back warranty) than the same $100/yr customer.

Companies selling online aren't headed by fools: when a customer orders, for example, 3 different red men's coats, these companies already know --even before the product ships-- that the customer will try them all on and then return 2 under their 30-day warranty. And the company is all too happy for that anyway because they know that without such warranty they would had sold ZERO coats to that customer because the customer would had instead walked into a brick-and-mortar store, try on all 3 coats, and buy the one that he liked best...all likely from the competition, not from them. This behavior is, of course, different from the customer who orders even one single coat, leaves its price tags on, taping them or otherwise hiding them to the interior of the coat, wears it every day for 29 days, returning it on the 30th day. They offer 30-day warranties because that's the industry standard; i.e., that's their way to compete with other businesses. If it is not the industry standard, they offer 30-day warranties to take customers away from businesses who aren't offering such warranties. Either way, however, that's part of a company's cost of doing business. If someone wants to feel sorry for them, then perhaps that explains why that person isn't the head of a large company somewhere.
 
Not sure I understand that. There are two sticky pads supplied, but they are 3M not reusable sticky pads. There is only one mount supplied, but you can probably buy a 2nd mount fairly easily by contacting Viofo, they seem happy to supply things like that, and have some of the other mounts available in their website shop.
Yeah... Sorry... that was a different model that had two plates. I believe you can purchase the plates at the website. Thanks.
 
There is a difference between this
There is absolutely nothing unethical about ordering an A139 from Amazon (or whoever also offers such 30-day return warranty) and testing it for 29 days and returning it on the 30th day if it doesn't work for you.
and this
Personally, what I would do is, get the A139, but from Amazon, try it for 29 days and if you don't like it, return it on day 30. No loss.
If you don't like it you can return it on day 2 without mounting all the cables inside car and transforming a brand new dashcam in an used dashcam which nobody wants.

No matter how much you will write about the 30 warranty, most of the people from this forum will not agree with your latest statement so don't waste your time again to write so much because you will not change their ideas about this situation.
For sure there will exist people buying the most expensive GoPro, going on holiday and after coming home to return the camera. This will be the same also with dashcams. Nothing new. Ugly people everywhere.
 
There is a difference between this

and this

If you don't like it you can return it on day 2 without mounting all the cables inside car and transforming a brand new dashcam in an used dashcam which nobody wants.

No matter how much you will write about the 30 warranty, most of the people from this forum will not agree with your latest statement so don't waste your time again to write so much because you will not change their ideas about this situation.
For sure there will exist people buying the most expensive GoPro, going on holiday and after coming home to return the camera. This will be the same also with dashcams. Nothing new. Ugly people everywhere.
"most of the people from this forum will not agree with your latest statement" Ah, so there is a second mind reader in this forum...
To recap, I proffered some ideas without attacking or passing judgement on anyone. In return someone who knows nothing about me chose to pass judgement on my integrity. If you chose to pass judgement on my integrity as well, be my guest, but you seem to know something I didn't know ("for sure there will exist people buying the most expensive GoPro, going on holiday and after coming home to return the camera") Yes, "Ugly people everywhere"; yes, the thief judges based on his own conscience as a thief. Good luck!
 
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