Hey
@Gibson99 I noticed most of the dash cams on the market seem to have the EXACT same software. For example, the menu system you went thru in your review is identical to the one I see in my Rexing V1 dash cam.
Are most of these dash cams from different manufacturers that all use the same software company? Or is the software open source or sth of the sort?
Great review btw
i figured it was just the standard software from novatek, the chipset manufacturer. then the company making the camera will tweak it however they want. i noticed that some of the menu icons were different from my a118 dashcams and the ds200 action cam i recently reviewed (both of which use a novatek chip). these were higher resolution and had actual descriptive text in them - for example, on the "screen saver" menu item, the icon actually says "LCD OFF" instead of just a clock or something like the ds200 and a118 have. of course, when you have a screen twice the size of the others, you can actually HAVE better icons.
@Gibson99,
thank you for this outstanding, thorough, well crafted, extremely balanced and unbiased review! We even get a tear-down analysis of the components and build quality! Now
THIS is what a
manufacturer/vendor supplied product review should be all about as opposed to the
"info-mercial", "shill-like" member reviews of freebie products we often see so much of here on DCT that are plastered with huge vendor supplied graphics, advertising photos, discount codes and sales links that contain mostly laudatory remarks, a few obligatory and perfunctory "cons", (barring a major flaw) along with a collection of sample videos, screen shots and little else of real substance. A "real" review should give the reader a knowledgeable, in-depth, realistic feel for and detailed overview of what one might expect if they were to purchase a given product and this review does exactly that! Additionally, this is a review that does service to both the manufacturer and the prospective dash cam buyer as both parties can come away feeling like they've received something worthwhile.
thanks. i did try to be honest without being condescending. that trim around the lens really would keep me from buying this camera, but everyone has their own taste in auto accessories. i also don't buy any of that chrome stick-on crap which takes up an entire aisle at autozone. that said, it obviously sells well because it's still for sale there, but i've never bought any of it. i did buy some of the black rubber door edge guard stuff which is also in that aisle, but i bought black - not chrome (which was right next to the black, and cost twice as much lol).
i admit i used a few of the "beauty shots" sent to me, but that was mostly because my eval unit was shipped in a generic box that doesn't reflect what they'll actually be shipped in, and i wanted to show their box since they obviously put some effort into it unlike some manufacturers. but obviously i took plenty of my own pics and video. I think i'm going to take a cue from
@Techmoan and
@USDashCamera and make my own dashcam primer video, since that would make future reviews shorter and more to the point... not to mention get newbies up to speed on the terminology (ie: what is loop recording? what's a g-sensor? etc...)
it also helped IMMENSELY that during my review (and even before it - they sent me a PDF of the manual before the camera arrived here), i had thorough, quick replies from itrue about all my comments. reviewing a product is a 2-way street. if the reviewer finds an issue or has criticism of a product, he shouldn't feel afraid of telling the company, but likewise, the company shouldn't brush off any criticism or negative comments. in this case, iTrue took my comments seriously and were not offended by my opinions. and it sounds like they will take some of it into consideration for their next product (hint: it will probably have less chrome.
)
I've only gotten a few products for review (and one of them technically wasn't sent to me for the review - it was a simple raffle that I won; I just decided to try my hand at a review and it turned out ok IMHO). but so far, itrue was the best one to work with in terms of questions/answers and back and forth about the product. that also speaks volumes about the company in a very good way.
one more thing:
@Qiong Wei - Personally I find even 16gb a little small for a 1080p camera. it recycles after only about 2 hours, so not only will the card wear out faster, if you forget to press the lock button or the g-sensor doesn't trigger for some reason, you might lose some footage you want to keep. for example - when the camera fell off the mount, it did NOT trigger the g-sensor. the only time i got it to trigger is when i hit the camera on the palm of my hand. i use 64gb cards in my A118s but i'm not typical. I make compilation videos with my footage. but it seems to me that 32gb isn't that much more expensive, and will make the card last longer via fewer write cycles, and less chance footage will be lost. also, worth mentioning that a standard sandisk ultra card like the one i received will have its warranty voided by using it in a dashcam. there are ways around that if you don't mind fibbing to sandisk when you make your RMA request, but still, it's not ideal. of course another alternative is to just NOT ship a card, sell the camera for a few bucks less, and let the customer decide what they want.
an 8gb card will only hold an hour of video at 1080p. in most cases of an accident, that will be plenty, but it also means teh card will be overwritten a LOT and wear out very fast.
