A118C Novatek 96650 Capacitor Battery Dash Cam@Gearbest

[jefferyjoel]

juz a quick sum of my newly-gotten A118C from GearBest. i'm a newbie, so don't give too much hope for a well written complete coverage. by the way, i haf a gt680w (imo an impressive workhorse) for the front & tis A118C is for the rear windscreen.

got tis A118C at the promo price & shipped on expedite, received within 3 working days. unboxed and installation is a breeze. the dashcam was shipped with the latest Jan'15 fw, user manual is in the friendly English version, all the functions/ buttons are tested without any trouble. since my car has the windscreen shades installed, tis cam is almost stealth completely from inside & out.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1yNEOPMvwBbb19hNURTZHJZRVk/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1yNEOPMvwBbbk5rUWRFOC1Yb0k/view?usp=sharing

was initially disappointed by the video quality & unconvincingly thot i got a lemon. the playback was pixelated, out of focus (esp on the move) and looks almost like a vga video quality. juz abt to log a case with GearBest, i reckon a deeper investigation is needed. to cut the chase, my rear windscreen has a 3M window film that caused the degraded video quality. till now i don't believe i'm ready/ convince to remove the film to solve this problem, hence, i reckon some compromised is required. however if you know of any workaround without removing the film, i look forward hearing....

for memory card, will be getting a 64gb but in the meantime, was using a kingston class4 8gb with no trouble. with a 1080p recording, the 8gb card is able to hold approx 20 set of 3mins video. strangely my gt680w is capable to cramp close to 30 videos is its' 8gb card as well

lastly, since my gt680w has an external plug-in gps, without doubt i tried it on tis A118C & no surprise, it didn't worked.

 

[efoo]

to cut the chase, my rear windscreen has a 3M window film that caused the degraded video quality. till now i don't believe i'm ready/ convince to remove the film to solve this problem, hence, i reckon some compromised is required. however if you know of any workaround without removing the film, i look forward hearing....

Then you should try recording your A118C at different place i.e. move it to front windscreen along side your GT680W, and compare their video quality. If they both appear the same recording from the front windscreen, then you can more confidently state your rear windscreen 3M film is the culprit, you then have no choice but to remove the 3M film (or cut a hole for the A118C).

 

[jokiin]

The 680 would probably fair better behind the tint, the lens is an f/1.6 the lens on the 118 is an f/2.8

 

[jefferyjoel]

Then you should try recording your A118C at different place i.e. move it to front windscreen along side your GT680W, and compare their video quality. If they both appear the same recording from the front windscreen, then you can more confidently state your rear windscreen 3M film is the culprit, you then have no choice but to remove the 3M film (or cut a hole for the A118C).

yes, tis was done dat's why i knoe e film is e culprit. i hope tis sharing also helps someone who encounter similar situation without pulling e hair. i'm not convince at e moment pulling e film off, so some compromises is needed. cutting a hole sounds possible except i don't think i can do a gd job..thanks anyway

 

[jefferyjoel]

The 680 would probably fair better behind the tint, the lens is an f/1.6 the lens on the 118 is an f/2.8

wow, i didn't noticed 680 haf such quality lens...impressive. will SG7LA50G coming soon with a capacitor version? i look forward getting it to replace my gt680w as the front windscreen cam. by the way, what f-stop is the lens of SG7LA50G?

 

[JuneBug]

Now that you mention it, this is true. Arial
On the G1W-C, when I turn on accessory mode, the dashcam comes on and when I crank the engine, it cuts off the 12V power momentarily and causes the dashcam to sometimes(depending on how much juice remains in the capacitor) to shutdown and reboot again. However, this is so abrupt that the file that it records never completely finish writing to the memory card. So the first file doesn't always open correctly for viewing...

I wired my A118 to the switched power for the autodimming mirror. So the cam like the mirror only powers up when the ignition switch is in the ON position, not ACC. This way it's not recording when I'm listening to music while parked and waiting for someone. You might think about moving your power lead to an ignition ON source instead of an ACC source. So far I haven't seen any corrupted or unreadable files.

 

[jokiin]

f/stop and quality are two different things, I mention it though as the spec of the cameras is otherwise very similar

The results on other solutions aren't as directly comparable

 

[Little Tim]

I am so sorry that the manufacture informed us that this dashcam is a price-limited product, we can't offer a price lower than the price on our web now

Looks like it's back to $65 now - no code required...

 

[GJHS]

I think it's because of their Anniversary Sale from Feb 3-10.

 

[Gibson99]

I think it's because of their Anniversary Sale from Feb 3-10.

most likely. just remember you have to spend at leas $100 to be entered in the drawing for the phablet. while i wouldn't mind a shiny new phone, i absolutely love my old Galaxy Relay 4G because of its slider qwerty keyboard.

and thanks to the devs on xda, i just installed Lollipop on it today. yes, android 5.0.2 on a 2+ year old device.

 

[GJHS]

and thanks to the devs on xda, i just installed Lollipop on it today. yes, android 5.0.2 on a 2+ year old device.

Cyanogenmod and a custom kernel all the way. Nothing beats an Android phone rooted, with an unlocked bootloader. My iPad 2 upgraded to iOS 8 and now is almost useless with no chance of being able to downgrade thanks to Apple's ridiculous policy of no choice.

 

[Gibson99]

Cyanogenmod and a custom kernel all the way. Nothing beats an Android phone rooted, with an unlocked bootloader. My iPad 2 upgraded to iOS 8 and now is almost useless with no chance of being able to downgrade thanks to Apple's ridiculous policy of no choice.

i actually replaced CM11 with this rom, called Validus. it borrows some things from CM12, like theme engine and privacy guard, since CM12 has yet to be ported to my device, and doesn't look like it will be real soon. I'm not saying that to be mean, just saying that development is slow on my device, but we're lucky that it shares a lot with the SGS3, so we benefit indirectly from their devs. but yeah - root is the way to go. i had this phone all of about 20 minutes before i rooted it. and that's only because it took me that long to figure out how to root it.

 

[JuneBug]

Looks like it's back to $65 now - no code required...

Just checked, and it's back to $73.53!

 

[GearBest]

Just checked, and it's back to $73.53!

If you add it into the cart, it will be $64.99 free shipping, our Anniversary Sale will be ended at 10th Feb.

 

[Jrlivin2]

Will this model support the GPS module?

If so, does Gearbest sell the module?

 

[jokiin]

Yes GPS is supported, same as the battery version

 

[GearBest]

Will this model support the GPS module?

If so, does Gearbest sell the module?

This model support the GPS module, but we haven't got the GPS part in for this moment. I can not give you the exact time as the Chinese Spring Festival approaching and we got too many things to deal with, maybe next week

 

[jokiin]

Foxoffer usually keep the GPS module for these

 

[Little Tim]

There were some reports on the battery version (Amazon reviews for example) that mentioned the picture would go out of focus after about 10-20 minutes of recording. Probably a heat related issue. Has this been fixed in the capacitor version?

 

[Gibson99]

There were some reports on the battery version (Amazon reviews for example) that mentioned the picture would go out of focus after about 10-20 minutes of recording. Probably a heat related issue. Has this been fixed in the capacitor version?

those were likely just defective units. i've had mine since August 2014 and had no issues. and trust me - it gets PLENTY hot here in houston in august. i've had no focus issues with it.