DDPai M6+ Techmoan's latest droolfest

"which makes me question these people's whole manufacturing/selling business strategy"

Made me think of " peace sells,,,,,, but who is buying ?" :D
 
question is will he continue to like it, it wasn't so long ago he was saying how great the K1S was and it was his personal choice, I'm sure there are plenty of owners of those that regret their purchase
Interesting, as was Techmoan's reply.
I bought the G1W on the strength of his review - (from one of the approved sellers) it's not had a great deal of use and seems to be failing.
I bought the DR32, again, after reading his great review - and that camera was a pile of crap from day 1, not helped by the seller ignoring customers then promising updates - which never really came.
I don't blame him for these cams not working out, I blame the manufacturers.
I wonder if they produce a few good quality units, send them out for review then cut back on quality to sell to the general public?
After all, millions of people buy dashcams on the strength of his reviews (or recommendations from people who watched his reviews).
Just seems really strange.
 
I'm not so sure I agree with that premise. Imagine getting slammed by the impact of another vehicle which then causes your vehicle spin out of control hitting another car, or a pedestrian. It can be just as important to capture the aftermath of a crash as the crash itself.

I think best practice is to have a dash cam mounted as securely as possible as well as to make sure that it has the best chance of not losing power during an incident.
Not forgetting that a car going forward at 30mph contains many items also doing that speed. if the magnet cannot hold the cam on a sudden stop, you now have a missile inside your car. if the cam breaks when it hits the screen, you have a sharp missile!
And during this process, what if the cam chucks a wobbly and writes garbage all over the card?
So I agree with the secure mount plus smallest mount possible to reduce the chances of vibration/movement with the mount being as solid as possible.
In this case, the mount already slides into the base, so the magnetic bit seems more to do with marketing?
 
Interesting, as was Techmoan's reply.
I bought the G1W on the strength of his review - (from one of the approved sellers) it's not had a great deal of use and seems to be failing.
I bought the DR32, again, after reading his great review - and that camera was a pile of crap from day 1, not helped by the seller ignoring customers then promising updates - which never really came.
I don't blame him for these cams not working out, I blame the manufacturers.
I wonder if they produce a few good quality units, send them out for review then cut back on quality to sell to the general public?
After all, millions of people buy dashcams on the strength of his reviews (or recommendations from people who watched his reviews).
Just seems really strange.

I've had a similar experience making purchase decisions from Techmoan's reviews with mixed results. As much as I enjoy his presentations I'm more circumspect now about his reviews, as I am from just about anyone who is after click revenue or who accepts large quantities of free products for promotional purposes.

FWIW, once I found and installed the "Patriot" firmware for my DR32 to replace the crappy firmware it shipped with I had a great experience with it. I put that camera through extended hard service both in hot and cold weather and it never let me down. I always expected the battery to fail or swell up but it never did. The day time video quality was pretty damned good in its day too! The DR32 also happens to have an impressive quality lens on it, much better than many similar priced cameras of the same vintage.

And my DR32 still works fine except that it is now out of service only because it is obsolete and better form factor cameras became available.
 
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From what I remember, Techmoan stated that he does not accept free review units. He purchases them with his own money, to be completely unbiased.

While I don't always agree with his recommendations, his reviews are amongst the best in terms of detail and objectivity. My needs are different than his -- different strokes for different folks.
 
Depending on the time of year a review is done certain issues may not be apparent. Heat distortion of the lens is unlikely to be seen in winter. It is possible that 500 good quality lithium ion batteries were sent out along with 2,000 bad ones. That battery in his dash cam may not fail because it is accidentally of better than average quality. I see failing batteries as a battery not a dash cam failure. I still want capacitors instead of batteries.

When any product is used short term no long term quality claims can be made or inferred.

If Techmoan uses a dash cam for 30 days he will not know if it typically self destructs on day 49.

An interesting question was brought up in this thread. Are the early production runs of better or worse quality compared to later versions? The mini series seemed to have bad first batches and then improved. The mobius had a metal lens holder then went to plastic that deforms in hot sun. Is it better to buy the first match or the last? if I get a dash cam that works well long term do I care of the same dash cam fails a lot for other people?

If a dash cam works well how can anyone get mad when it is given a great review just because many others of the same make fail?

I do not think that Techmoan fakes his reviews. I do not think he holds onto his test subjects long enough to verify long term performance. How can we get angry knowing these limitations apply to his reviews?
 
I wonder if they produce a few good quality units, send them out for review then cut back on quality to sell to the general public?
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no, but the normal Chinese business model is how to constantly make things cheaper so subsequent productions of a same item generally start to lose quality pretty quickly
 
I do not think that Techmoan fakes his reviews. I do not think he holds onto his test subjects long enough to verify long term performance. How can we get angry knowing these limitations apply to his reviews?

I don't think he fakes his reviews at all, it's his own genuine thoughts on the product, he will often mention things that might be considered negative by some but not something he considers an issue himself, it still gets a mention though, if he were to hold things long enough to see them fail the reviews might never happen so that's an unreasonable expectation, given the reality of the situation I think they present more of a 'what to expect should you buy this product' without you having to buy it to find out, you get a presentation of the product, a run through the menus, some sample video and thoughts on how it might compare to other products he has looked at previously and if it's truly terrible you get to find that out also, for a new user shopping online where you can't look and touch beforehand it's a good resource, they still need to do their own due diligence as to where to buy from, what sort of service is offered etc and make their own assessment of how long a product at a particular price point might be expected to last
 
I don't think Techmoan fakes his reviews either. In fact, I think he does some of the more thorough and objective reviews in the business. Compared to most, they're pretty entertaining too! I just feel that when someone, anyone, is monetizing their videos and collecting click revenues from certain vendors that it's just a good idea to take any recommendation with a grain of salt. This is especially true for what is likely to be a hot product, especially if coming from a popular reviewer who knows he will be generating a lot of clicks and views.

@country_hick, I think you make several very valid points and as such it can make sense to wait awhile before purchasing in order to have the opportunity to evaluate the camera after it has been in other customer's hands for a period of time.
 
I don't think Techmoan fakes his reviews either. In fact, I think he does some of the more thorough and objective reviews in the business. Compared to most, they're pretty entertaining too! I just feel that when someone, anyone, is monetizing their videos and collecting click revenues from certain vendors that it's just a good idea to take any recommendation with a grain of salt. This is especially true for what is likely to be a hot product, especially if coming from a popular reviewer who knows he will be generating a lot of clicks and views.
.

all his reviews do have affiliate links, I don't think he hides the fact and has to pay for site costs, samples he buys etc so getting some revenue back would go some way toward that, I guess people should still take that into consideration and make their own judgement call on whether that favours any particular product or sales channel one way or the other
 
all his reviews do have affiliate links, I don't think he hides the fact and has to pay for site costs, samples he buys etc so getting some revenue back would go some way toward that, I guess people should still take that into consideration and make their own judgement call on whether that favours any particular product or sales channel one way or the other

I don't fault Techmoan at all for the hard and excellent work he does and value he provides but based on my understanding of how these things work and the number of eyeballs and clicks he likely generates he is likely making VERY good money from all his efforts, despite his costs. People should understand that this same concept applies to DCT as well.
 
I don't fault Techmoan at all for the hard and excellent work he does and value he provides but based on my understanding of how these things work and the number of eyeballs and clicks he likely generates he is likely making VERY good money from all his efforts, despite his costs. People should understand that this same concept applies to DCT as well.

I see the DCT model as being a bit different in that there are a lot of reviews where the supplier of the review item (aka one seller only) derives a benefit through sales generated, the site derives a benefit through the affiliate links used here, and it seems the reviewer spends many hours doing the work and gets to keep a $50 camera
 
I see the DCT model as being a bit different in that there are a lot of reviews where the supplier of the review item (aka one seller only) derives a benefit through sales generated, the site derives a benefit through the affiliate links used here, and it seems the reviewer spends many hours doing the work and gets to keep a $50 camera

Yes, of course, the model is different but my point is that the ultimate goal is profit, as much or as little as it may be. For all the obvious public service, usefulness and value added, DCT is a business (a growing one) as are Techmoan's endeavors. There is nothing wrong with that, but it should not be presented as anything else and it should be understood by all that that is what it is.
 
this (rather unfortunately) is a very accurate analysis of the current market for 99% of the China sellers
I agree.Here in Australia we a have mainly Chinese manufactured goods & good quality is no longer the issue .Low prices are driving demand & it is "pot luck " if you get a good product.
 
I agree.Here in Australia we a have mainly Chinese manufactured goods & good quality is no longer the issue .Low prices are driving demand & it is "pot luck " if you get a good product.

it's human nature to want to get a good price on something, unfortunately it has become too much about price and it's getting harder to actually buy something decent as retailers constantly strive to appeal to customers with the lowest price offers, sadly that very quickly drives down quality and service levels to unacceptable levels
 
But couldnt the argument about not trusting a reviewers motives because he may get money from click revenue be applied to all sales? At the end of the day, any sales opportunity is to make money. How do you know that when you ask a sales assistant for advice that they aren't just "directing" you to the product that earns them the most commission/profit etc? Apple stores do not pay their staff commission, the intention being that the advice is completely impartial as the sales associate does not profit in any way from what he sells. Whilst this sound good, surely he still has targets to meet?

Regarding Techmoans reviews, he was the first site I came across reviewing dash cams, and that was several years ago. It didn't persuade me on any particular camera - I bought my first one, a SG9665GC just a few weeks ago in May. I bought that based on things Id read on here. I haven't used it much yet as I'm trying to get the install as discreet as possible (and should have it finished at the weekend, plan to put pictures in the relevant section of the forum). I've been reading the thread about the contrast problems (that may not be the right term) with the regular firmware updates to work on the issue, but can't help thinking to myself "why does this camera have these issues, when others (i.e. the one this thread started talking about) don't seem to have them, despite being cheaper?

Could we get Techmoan to review the GC?
 
But couldnt the argument about not trusting a reviewers motives because he may get money from click revenue be applied to all sales? At the end of the day, any sales opportunity is to make money. How do you know that when you ask a sales assistant for advice that they aren't just "directing" you to the product that earns them the most commission/profit etc?

absolutely that happens in the retail environment, products have incentives for sales staff, not so much in mass market retail where there is no service to speak of and it's just product you pick up off the shelf yourself

Regarding Techmoans reviews, he was the first site I came across reviewing dash cams, and that was several years ago. It didn't persuade me on any particular camera - I bought my first one, a SG9665GC just a few weeks ago in May. I bought that based on things Id read on here. I haven't used it much yet as I'm trying to get the install as discreet as possible (and should have it finished at the weekend, plan to put pictures in the relevant section of the forum). I've been reading the thread about the contrast problems (that may not be the right term) with the regular firmware updates to work on the issue, but can't help thinking to myself "why does this camera have these issues, when others (i.e. the one this thread started talking about) don't seem to have them, despite being cheaper?

every camera has issues of one type or another, there is no perfect product in the market, perhaps they do well in one respect and not so well in others
 
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