Gearbest Dome G90 Dashcam with Ambarella A7LA30 Review

[CheckYourLights]

Also, I went to the car after parking for around 6 hours outside and noticed the car mount fell off.
Camera with the mount was hanging off of the usb cable.
May be heat? Hmm...
It stuck back on to the windshield fine though.

I had this happen once to mine as well.

 

[Sunny]

Here is a night video with HDR on.
Doesn't have much halo on the lights at all.
Also, I can't tell if HDR on really improved much quality at night but it's really good at night in either mode.
Black patches/pixelation is in youtube, not in real video.

I'll add more night videos later.
My internet is horribly slow here. It took me 1 hour to upload this 3 minute clip.

Good:
1. G90 has great FOV. It covers a lot more angle than G1WH.
2. Great sharpness, color and focus.
3. High resolution compared to G1WH even though both are 1080p with similar VBR.
4. Videos look natural. Other dashcams warp corners and look like fisheye lens but G90 videos are straight even in the corners. Very nice!

Bad:
1. Microphone distorts easily on the ones from initial batch.
2. Full battery charge doesn't even last few minutes and discharges itself when it's off. It's almost like capacitor instead of battery.
It shouldn't matter as it's powered all the time and has enough to save last video easily but inconvenience to work on menus without plugging in the charger.
Not sure if the battery on mine is bad or it's same with all G90's.

Overall, G90 is great camera.
While G1W (H) is best bang of the buck for a year and a decent camera, G90 does everything better.
G90 could be the next best bang of the buck dashcam from now on.
I'd love to see a comparison of G90 with higher end dashcams like Panorama to see how it holds up.

Those who are on the fence, I recommend G90 very highly.

If you don't want to spend that much, G1WH or G1W-C is still very decent alternative for $39.99 or $41.99 @ gearbest.com

 

[DashCamOwnersAustralia]

Doing a review on this unit currently also.

Quality is very good , Microphone is crap. but for the price i'm very impressed so far. Not entirely sold on the suction cup yet though.

 

[jokiin]

Doing a review on this unit currently also.

Quality is very good , Microphone is crap. but for the price i'm very impressed so far. Not entirely sold on the suction cup yet though.

could be a good value proposition with a bit of fine tuning

 

[Sunny]

Doing a review on this unit currently also.

Quality is very good , Microphone is crap. but for the price i'm very impressed so far. Not entirely sold on the suction cup yet though.

Yes suction cup fell few more times, specially when parking under the sun.
Maybe some vaseline will help. Hmm...

 

[CheckYourLights]

H inconvenience to work on menus without plugging in the charger.
Not sure if the battery on mine is bad or it's same with all G90's.

I have just enough power to check the firmware version if I am quick and then it shuts down on mine.

 

[soddo]

so there is no option to have HDR turn on automatically?!?!?

seems like a very large oversight in the firmware

 

[Sunny]

so there is no option to have HDR turn on automatically?!?!?

seems like a very large oversight in the firmware

It is automatic once you select that option and starts taking video in HDR mode every time but it doesn't switch to HDR from non-HDR unless you change it.

 

[Sunny]

Few more vidoes:
1. This one is at dusk. This is around an hour before the Test-8 video above.
HDR on.

2. This is on a rural country highway with no streetlights to occasional streetlights and traffic signals.
Speed around 60mph.
HDR on.

3. G90 video on a cloudy morning. HDR off, I think.
Hopping Buick Riviera at 2:32 on the left.

BTW, the suction cup fell today morning while driving and it was a cool cloudy morning so heat is not an issue.
I parked and took the suction cups out to look closely.
Suction cup of G90 is not as deep compared to G1WH that has never fallen off the windshield yet.
Suction cup needs to be little deeper or bigger for the G90 so it hangs on better.
Does Vaseline help?
Is the suction cup replaceable?
Is there an alternate mount for the G90?

 

[Sunny]

Here is a video of the suction mount falling off.
I have 3 minutes loop set.
G90 saved 30 seconds of the video as incident under 'EVENT' folder.
It still has full video under 'NORMAL' folder. That's nice!

 

[CheckYourLights]

Is there an alternate mount for the G90?

If I had to pick one thing I did not like about the G90/Blackview BL950 that would be it. I'm really hoping a different mount becomes available.

Here is a video of the suction mount falling off.
I have 3 minutes loop set.
G90 saved 30 seconds of the video as incident under 'EVENT' folder.
It still has full video under 'NORMAL' folder. That's nice!

It took me a little while to get the Event button down correctly, but once I figured it out (Seems like 10 seconds, button press, 20 more seconds.) I really love the way it is set up, and having 50 button presses is really nice both in helping to review and regular driving.

 

[Sunny]

and having 50 button presses is really nice both in helping to review and regular driving.

50 button presses?

 

[CheckYourLights]

50 button presses?

Sorry should have been more clear. You can press the SOS/Event Button 50 times before it is full. With my TF2 and Marcus 3 you can only press it 10 or 15 times. It really has come in handy while reviewing the camera being able to record for days and save interesting or clips to use in my review without having to clear the locked folder as often.

So I can lock a lot of stuff to go over and don't have to worry that i might erase an older locked file because I have so many lock spots.

 

[Sabe]

There is some good and some bad things concerning SOS button.
Good is that it's there, not having to remember what button it was again...
Good is that it's very fast way to save some interesting action.
Bad is that you have to press it very fast at the event, otherwise it's gone.
Bad is that it's only 30 second total.
Bad is that you can't lock video files manually afterward, meaning if you want to be 100% sure you got to have 2 memory cards with you because the only way to to protect long video files is to remove card from camera.
But don't get me wrong, i like this dvr.

 

[Sunny]

I see.
10 secs may not be enough sometimes but the normal video is still there so no worries.

 

[Sunny]

Maybe it would be best to use every three metering mode choices for a day and then try to figure out what looks best to you, i think it might be different depending are you driving mostly in city or countryside, high buildings can change sunlight very fast.
Thanks for checking framerate, i had some strange FW that had set framerate to 25, now i loaded r328 again and now it is ok 30.

Looks like center [] is better than weighted [o].
Weighted makes videos very bright/washed out.

 

[CheckYourLights]

Looks like center [] is better than weighted [o].
Weighted makes videos very bright/washed out.

I'll have to check what mine is set to. Thanks
:EDIT: mine was set to Center when I checked.

 

[Sunny]

Anyone had a chance to play with more CPL sizes?
I'm not sure what size to get.

 

[Sunny]

Update on the mount falling off...

After the mount fell off the windshield quite a few times on its own, I used a dab of Vaseline and spread around the edge of suction cup.
It hasn't fallen off since last 3 days now.

Also, the G1WH couldn't hold on the rear window and guess who came to the rescue?
So lubrication helps here as well...

Here is how the G1WH on rear window looks... be careful though, if you put too much, it'll still hold on to the window but it'll slide down.

 

[DashCamOwnersAustralia]

I came to the conclusion of everyone else basically.

Very good footage
Very poor microphone.
Event button unpredictable.

But I didnt have any issues with suction mount.