HonestReview
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- Feb 9, 2019
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@HonestReview, you've been having issues with Viofo & Zenfox cameras for a long time, at the end of the day your time isn't free so if they're wanting you to test for them they should refund you the product price.
The top Amazon UK review of the A139 says it was a freebie from Viofo and Amazon don't like that these days.
For dashcams stability is king, screw the bells and whistles. These aren't cheap cameras.
If you're testing it's a different matter but you have paid money so you're a customer - not a Viofo tester and it's winding you up. You have invested a lot of time faffing about. I don't check here much these days but I think every time I do you've posted about a stability issue.
The A129 Duo and A119v3 were both very stable for me but the A129 Pro was just way too picky with cards for it's own good. Picture quality was great but I would never rely on it for an accident. Both units I tried were not 100% reliable. Street Guardian I know I could do 200 miles and it would all be recorded - the A129 Pro I literally wouldn't be sure it had everything to the end of our village.
Shoehorning more channels onto a single microSD card just highlights issues where microSD storage still isn't reliably quick enough across all vendors. It never helps when manufacturers change specs these days half way through a production run but everything is made for maximum profit these days, the slightest latency on write and a multichannel dashcam will have issues and Novatek just don't seem to have found the right answer.
If I'm still here in 5 years I could check in on DCT and odds are you'll have an issue with a Viofo A159 camera and @russ331 will still be posting that his 12 year old capacitors in his Mobii are still working perfectly
Hi,
Well the Zenfox T3 ended up being a complete failure. No one believed my analysis (Cough @Nigel and others), and kept telling me these problems didn't exist. Slowly, one by one everyone then verified everything I said as true. With people like @EGS and I trying to make home made heatsinks to see what would resolve the issues.
I had no reason to lie about reliability issues.....I got the Zenfox T3 as a Beta Tester. So at least "I wasn't out money".
Not true on the Viofo A139 Channel.....
1. I own 2 x A129 Duos (1080ps). Other than the dupe frame issue that was never resolved, those cameras HAVE NEVER FAILED. I mean COLD AS COLD and HOT AS HOT. Never a hiccup. I run an A129 Duo in each of my vehicles.
2. I purchased the A139 3 Channel at full price. No Freebie. No Promo. Guess what, the first unit overheated and corrupted files. Everyone told me I must have a bad unit. Theirs never did. I had Viofo send me a second unit as a replacement. Guess what? That unit does the same thing.
I am definitely disappointed Viofo doesn't value my opinion. I looked forward to testing the T130 but they apparently didn't feel the same.
At my own expense, I've tested the A139 with some disappointing results. A camera that overheats in parking mode and leads to corrupt files / sd card (depending on settings). However, the camera does work well in regular driving and generally will record up to 2-3 hrs in parking mode "in direct heat".