SawMaster
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2015
- Messages
- 9,450
- Reaction score
- 8,318
- Location
- SC
- Country
- United States
- Dash Cam
- Numerous and ever-changing
I just got this cam: from Banggood. It's listed as:
Full HD 1080P G1W 2.7 inch LCD Camera Auto Video G-SENSOR 120 Degree
and it claims to record in .mov which the original with a Novatek chipset did. However this one has a GeneralPlus chipset and the vid's are in .avi format, thus this is not as advertised but another 'fake' G1w
But for ~$26 USD it seems to be worth the price so far. Comes with the usual accessories, and wasn't packed well, being delivered unhurt but in a partly crushed box inside a bag. This is the norm for BG so I wasn't surprised. The menus and buttons were intuitive for an experienced G1Wx owner knowing that each model varies a bit, and in moments I had my Samsung 32GB Class 10 card in and formatted. Settings were a bit weird- loop was only 5 or 10 mins, it has 'park mode', it has LDW (which I ignored as it probably doesn't work on a cam this cheap), the "power off" function had just "off" and 1 or 3 minutes to select from (I chose 1 but it shuts down in 7 seconds instead of 60). The firmware was listed as: 20160304 V1.0
A quick temporary install as a side-cam was a breeze. This has the old short mount which I like better than the new-style ball-joint mount as those can be loose and break when you tighten them enough for the cam to become solid. It powered on when powered up as expected and all seemed well. The screen-saver worked as expected and the cam seemed to function correctly during my 30 minute drive to work. Once parked and powered down, the cam shut down after about 7 seconds. All seemed well on the drive home, where I removed it and checked the vids. First I discovered the .avi format. Then I noticed some 'wavering' of light intensity at regular intervals as if the WDR couldn't get a lock. This happened even when stationary and is definitely a fault. It was not present on every clip and there seemed to be no pattern to it. The images were still decent overall for a cam this cheap.
I tried to get it to accept a 64GB Transcend card and when I inserted it, the card slid past the socket and into the cam. This is a fault with many of the cheap G1W's and you have to be careful or you'll end up having to open the case as I did. Once reassembled, the cam didn't recognize the card which was formatted to FAT32 on my PC. I did a PC re-format and got the same results. So with this cam it's max is a 32GB card as it's advertised. During this process a few of the settings I'd selected changed themselves, so I went back to the 32GB card and reset the menu settings again.
PROS:
Decent images for a cheap cam
Seems to function as expected
Good Mount supplied
Really cheap price
CONS:
GP chipset
Wavering light levels
32GB card maximum
Can lose card inside of camera when inserting
CONCLUSION:
For ~$26 you can't really expect much and though I've used it only about an hour so far it seems to give you what you paid for. I am disappointed in the mis-advertised vid format not being .mov as claimed and with the 'wavering' issue. I can't recommend this cam unless you're so poor you are giving up meals to get money to buy a dash-cam with, and even then you're better off missing just a couple more meals to get a far better cam for a few dollars more. Best to pass on this one
Phil
Full HD 1080P G1W 2.7 inch LCD Camera Auto Video G-SENSOR 120 Degree
and it claims to record in .mov which the original with a Novatek chipset did. However this one has a GeneralPlus chipset and the vid's are in .avi format, thus this is not as advertised but another 'fake' G1w
But for ~$26 USD it seems to be worth the price so far. Comes with the usual accessories, and wasn't packed well, being delivered unhurt but in a partly crushed box inside a bag. This is the norm for BG so I wasn't surprised. The menus and buttons were intuitive for an experienced G1Wx owner knowing that each model varies a bit, and in moments I had my Samsung 32GB Class 10 card in and formatted. Settings were a bit weird- loop was only 5 or 10 mins, it has 'park mode', it has LDW (which I ignored as it probably doesn't work on a cam this cheap), the "power off" function had just "off" and 1 or 3 minutes to select from (I chose 1 but it shuts down in 7 seconds instead of 60). The firmware was listed as: 20160304 V1.0
A quick temporary install as a side-cam was a breeze. This has the old short mount which I like better than the new-style ball-joint mount as those can be loose and break when you tighten them enough for the cam to become solid. It powered on when powered up as expected and all seemed well. The screen-saver worked as expected and the cam seemed to function correctly during my 30 minute drive to work. Once parked and powered down, the cam shut down after about 7 seconds. All seemed well on the drive home, where I removed it and checked the vids. First I discovered the .avi format. Then I noticed some 'wavering' of light intensity at regular intervals as if the WDR couldn't get a lock. This happened even when stationary and is definitely a fault. It was not present on every clip and there seemed to be no pattern to it. The images were still decent overall for a cam this cheap.
I tried to get it to accept a 64GB Transcend card and when I inserted it, the card slid past the socket and into the cam. This is a fault with many of the cheap G1W's and you have to be careful or you'll end up having to open the case as I did. Once reassembled, the cam didn't recognize the card which was formatted to FAT32 on my PC. I did a PC re-format and got the same results. So with this cam it's max is a 32GB card as it's advertised. During this process a few of the settings I'd selected changed themselves, so I went back to the 32GB card and reset the menu settings again.
PROS:
Decent images for a cheap cam
Seems to function as expected
Good Mount supplied
Really cheap price
CONS:
GP chipset
Wavering light levels
32GB card maximum
Can lose card inside of camera when inserting
CONCLUSION:
For ~$26 you can't really expect much and though I've used it only about an hour so far it seems to give you what you paid for. I am disappointed in the mis-advertised vid format not being .mov as claimed and with the 'wavering' issue. I can't recommend this cam unless you're so poor you are giving up meals to get money to buy a dash-cam with, and even then you're better off missing just a couple more meals to get a far better cam for a few dollars more. Best to pass on this one
Phil