A129 Pro upgrade to A329s

[xShadPro]

I've been using the A129 Pro Duo for the past 5 years, and it's served me well. However, it's starting to show its age, the GPS unit has failed, and occasionally it won’t power on.

I’ve ordered a refurbished replacement for now, which should hopefully get me through another few years. But I’m also considering whether it’s worth upgrading to the A329S.

My main concerns (which I haven’t been able to fully resolve through reviews) are:

• Image quality difference, is it noticeably better?
• Clarity and exposure, YouTube samples make the footage look over exposed/full of noise, but maybe that’s improved with firmware updates?

What I would look forward to in the A329S:

• Faster download speeds
• Support for expandable external storage
• 2K resolution for the rear camera
• A brand-new, more reliable unit w/warranty

Still on the fence and waiting for it to become available on Amazon UK, but open to thoughts from anyone who’s made the switch?

 

[kamkar]

Welcome to the forum xShadPro.

I am not familiar with the A129 models or the new A329 ones but i did sample a A229 and it gave me no grief.
Going from A129 pro to A329 will be like night and day, well at least when it come to low light performance, the newer sensors just as is also have a much better dynamic range.
We EURO / former EURO boys dont need higher rear camera resolution, so 2K will be just fine there, some are hammering on dual 4K though.

 

[Vortex Radar]

Yeah lowlight performance will be the biggest upgrade, plus of course the higher res rear cam and all the new features. You will need to run all new wiring for the new cam.

 

[mikey94025]

I think it also depends on what you primarily use your dashcam for. You mentioned image and footage quality, so do you regularly replay or post your driving movies? Alternatively, do you care more about capturing events (so license recognition and maybe parking mode matter). The new features and feature enhancement benefits of the A329S/T apply differently to these and other scenarios.

For me, the A329S telephoto camera is a significant benefit because I care more about license plate recognition and especially at night or during motion. I don't really care about exposure or color when replaying driving scenes as long as it's clear what happened and who is culpable.

 

[rcg530]

My wife's 2017 Kia Soul has had a VIOFO A129 Duo [for about 1 year], A129 Pro Duo, and most recently the A229 Pro 2CH [front+rear]. The A129 Pro Duo did a good job for almost five years in that car. Last year, I decided to upgrade my wife's car's dash camera to the A229 Pro 2CH since I had just finished the review for that dash camera and found it to be as good or better than the A129 Pro image quality [especially nighttime HDR footage]. I rewired things [different hardwire kit and different rear camera cable for the A229 Pro vs A129 Pro]. The A229 Pro 2CH has been working well in my wife's car since it was installed. She drives one to three days a week to her work office and parks the car for about nine hours at work. I've been very satisfied with the A229 Pro in that car.

The A129 Pro Duo's hardwire kit was sourcing power from the vehicle's fuse box. The A129 Pro Duo would remain operational while the car was parked at work, but on rare occasions as the car's battery aged, the low voltage protection [12.2V] would turn off the power to the A129 Pro Duo. When I installed the A229 Pro 2CH, I decided to install a dash camera battery pack.

I would say A329S would be a nice improvement over the A229 Pro due to the new parking mode options [Low Power Impact Detection / Hybrid Parking Recording]. The A329S image quality is as good or better in some situations compared to the A229 Pro. For nighttime HDR footage, there are times when the A229 Pro image quality is slightly worse than the A329S and times the A329S image quality is slightly worse than the A229 Pro image quality. Overall, I like the A329S/T/WW [same front unit] image quality. I'd upgrade my wife's car with A329S 2CH [she won't accept an interior camera in her car], but I'm not looking forward to replacing the A229 Pro's rear camera cable with the rear camera cable for the A329S. Of course, I selected the most difficult route for the cable, but that's my own fault. 🙂