Vortex Radar
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2014
- Messages
- 1,588
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- Location
- Seattle, Washington
- Country
- United States
So I've recently been curious what some of the budget dashcams are like, so I ordered a pair of 70mai M310's and installed one alongside my A329T (very different dashcams, lol) and put it through its paces.
It records at 1296p30 with a SmartSens SC3336P image sensor. Video quality isn't gonna win any awards, but it's pretty usable for recording a general overview of what's around you. Its quality is better than some full on potato cams I've seen. It doesn't offer a CPL or HDR, but it does have WDR on full-time which can help with plate capture.
The physical button on the side lets you power the cam on/off, toggle WiFi, format the card, etc., but it doesn't let you trigger emergency recording. For that you have to use voice commands which I find often don't work well over road noise. There's also an internal battery unfortunately instead of a supercapacitor, so there's the usual fire risk in hot weather.
If you get the hardwire cable, you can get non-buffered collision detection which surprisingly starts recording essentially instantly (not 1-2 sec), though the G-sensor is kinda weak. It also has a 1fps timelapse mode. You can also run both modes at once to record something before an impact, but it does take ~2 sec to switch from TL to normal recording mode. There's also spoken impact detected notifications, though you do get a fair number of falses from your door closing if you don't set it to wait 5 min before switching from driving to parking mode. I've also had many unreliable experiences with it not switching between driving and parking mode properly.
The app works pretty well. You can aim the dashcam, change settings, download footage, and do OTA FW updates (none have been released recently). WiFi transfer speeds are pretty slow since it only uses 2.4 GHz, despite the fact that file sizes are small at only ~92 MB/min at 1292p30, but at least you have the option.
The dashcam does have some deficiencies, but given the pricepoint, I could see it being a viable option, especially if you're aware of and okay with its trade-offs.
It records at 1296p30 with a SmartSens SC3336P image sensor. Video quality isn't gonna win any awards, but it's pretty usable for recording a general overview of what's around you. Its quality is better than some full on potato cams I've seen. It doesn't offer a CPL or HDR, but it does have WDR on full-time which can help with plate capture.
The physical button on the side lets you power the cam on/off, toggle WiFi, format the card, etc., but it doesn't let you trigger emergency recording. For that you have to use voice commands which I find often don't work well over road noise. There's also an internal battery unfortunately instead of a supercapacitor, so there's the usual fire risk in hot weather.
If you get the hardwire cable, you can get non-buffered collision detection which surprisingly starts recording essentially instantly (not 1-2 sec), though the G-sensor is kinda weak. It also has a 1fps timelapse mode. You can also run both modes at once to record something before an impact, but it does take ~2 sec to switch from TL to normal recording mode. There's also spoken impact detected notifications, though you do get a fair number of falses from your door closing if you don't set it to wait 5 min before switching from driving to parking mode. I've also had many unreliable experiences with it not switching between driving and parking mode properly.
The app works pretty well. You can aim the dashcam, change settings, download footage, and do OTA FW updates (none have been released recently). WiFi transfer speeds are pretty slow since it only uses 2.4 GHz, despite the fact that file sizes are small at only ~92 MB/min at 1292p30, but at least you have the option.
The dashcam does have some deficiencies, but given the pricepoint, I could see it being a viable option, especially if you're aware of and okay with its trade-offs.