Has anyone ever come across Range Tour? Considering them to solve an issue

[mccalli]

Hi - first post for me.

Has anyone ever come across Range Tour before, and if so are there any general impressions? I'm considering them for a specific set of circumstances:

• Right-hand drive (UK) convertible - this one in fact:
  
• Want a rear cam as well as front
• 1080p on both front and rear views

Specifically I have a 1998 BMW Z3, like this, that gets driven in London a lot - being rear-ended is at least as likely as needing to record things from the front, possibly more so. The entire car roof disappears though, so there is no suitable mounting place anywhere but the front windscreen.

Most of the dual-lens cameras seem to have their rear lens on the right-hand side. In my UK car that's no good - it will spend most of its time recording my face, which I am perfectly happy not to have committed to video. No, the rear cam will need to be on the left-hand side of the unit, so that I can conceal the unit behind the rear view mirror to avoid distraction, yet still have the rear camera peeking out from the side of the mirror and pointing back through the car. As you can see there's limited space even for that - will need to be so that I can position the rear camera lens between the left-hand edge of the mirror and the right-hand edge of the passenger visor.

The closest I've found to what I want are these Range Tours (B80 or B90) or the Nextbase Duo HD. The NextBase looks good but some things about it - it seems to take a lot of space hanging directly down instead of flush against the windscreen, it has the 'Nextbase' logo burned into all footage, appears to be lower spec on max card size and it's about £90 more expensive than these Range Tours. Upside - easy to get hold of, known quantity on reliability, good support. Advantage of the Range Tours - they're a lot cheaper, -appear- to be higher spec, capacitor not battery, they sit flush against the windscreen. Disadvantage...but I can barely find anything about them so no idea how well they'll work. They also seem to be pretty large, flush against the windscreen or not.

Any knowledge of them appreciated - thanks.

 

[SawMaster]

I've never heard of them, but that may mean nothing. Good 2-channel cams aren't cheap with darn few offering 1080p front and rear with a good enough bitrate to allow 30fps on both which is generally held to be the minimum necessary.

You don't get what you don't pay for and with 2-channel cams that goes double. The perfect cam has never been built so you will be compromising something somewhere whatever you choose. An awkward mounting with great vids is preferable to a nice mounting that leaves you with worthless vids when you need them the most. Your choice.

Phil

 

[jokiin]

I've never heard of them, but that may mean nothing.

it's a Chinese domestic market brand, everything they sell is public model product

 

[SawMaster]

In other words they are just assembling parts anyone can get into a cam might which is probably much like many others and probably on the cheap side of everything too. That's not always bad though it usually is a warning sign to not expect much.

Phil

 

[jokiin]

Can be ok but it's a case of get what you get and don't get upset, updates or improvements don't happen on this type of product

 

[Borsuq]

They sell on AliExpress. I got one of these, 2-channel, GPS, HD on front and back (although back is "only" 720p).
Mine was unfortunate. Shortly after turning on, it displayed "Memory error" message and stopped recording.
The seller even sent me a SanDisk SD card, claiming that fast card is required, but it didn't help.
They even sent me a replacement, but issue still persisted. I managed to get it working by resetting it couple of times, but this is not
valid way of operating camera recorder. Eventually, it was past any possible dispute or even rating so I'm not using it now.

 

[adrianjt]

Soz, necrothread...

Was looking at dashcams on alix last week & received promo email today... (basic) A129+gps for $122au... pretty cheap for Oz (galaxy1).

Will consider.

But also promo'd was rangetour (31k followers, 98%+), their only products are dashcams.

x7s (#1 seller) seemed decent specs (similar B4K except OV4689 sensor/ntk96663).

As mentioned in 2018 (above) looks like rebadged gear.

Point being they are still in business with 420 reviews of x7s, it can't be too shabby (ADAS, internal capacitor & gps, hot?)

Uses "timacam &/or "roadcam" apps (mentions both)

Will see if B4K does what I hope, otherwise A129 looks a steal!

cheers
adrian

 

[kamkar]

You should not have too much faith in reviews on places like ebay / aliexpress / amazon and what ever, and a number of followers on some social media, well those can be bought too.
I sure as hell would not go for a brand with no or next to no history of service and customer care.

 

[SawMaster]

The OV4689 is a good sensor daytime but now quite outdated- that alone should be reason enough to avoid this one. And the 'roadcam' app has either changed or is gone; BlueSkySea no longer uses it and it's a bit moldy too.

Always consider the source of information on dashcams. Fake and slanted reviews abound for nearly all cams. Rating systems are commonly manipulated behind the scenes with some such as Vava doing it blatantly by offering payment for top-level reviews

While I don't always advocate for the newest cams as they may not be necessary, you really don't want to handicap yourself with choosing something which is less than you need or can get for the same price in a newer model. Sometimes older can be better for a very specific purpose but usually not when you want a dashcam for less specific purposes such as regular driving recording.

I'm testing the B4K as a freebie and so far it seems good, but I haven't tried the HWK, the rear cam, or used it in high heat so I cannot fully recommend it yet but at this point all signs are good and there are many worse choices. I think it will be OK in the heat based on it's design and my experience, and the HWK should be good as well. My biggest question regards the rear cam coming into play as those can be and cause trouble sometimes. As a single cam I'm liking it and it's price is certainly attractive for a product of it's quality and performance level.

Phil

 

[SawMaster]

Just to add I recorded all day long at work with the B4K, temps inside the closed van were around 82F/28C for probably 2 hours. All cam settings maxxed out, no glitches. Not a true heat test but as hot as I've been able to test in so far.

Phil