Smallest Ambarella Car DVR a.k.a. Mini 0801

Lads,

I've decided to buy one of these camera's as my new dashcam, as there are lots for sale can someone please recommend me a trustworthy seller regarding quality of the camera and the most recent stable firmware.

Thanks in advance...:)

I would order it from E-Prance using their Amazon Store, that way you will normally get it within a couple days or next day if you are a Prime customer as Amazon themselves fulfil most of E-Prance's orders, Just make sure it says 'Fulfilled by Amazon', as this is something they have only recently arranged with Amazon. Much better than having to wait for it to arrive from China. :)

This is the Eprance mini 0801 with GPS, they also have the GPS +8GB version for just a few pounds extra, just a matter of personal preference. I use both versions without any problems.
E-prance also do a few deals where they bundle a memory card with the camera, spare bases are now available too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B00F5WP7H4
 
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I have a question for people who have already flashed their mini 0801 trough the USB cable with direct USB.
Does the ambarella driver disappears from the device manager list right before and during the writing?
Direct usb puts the mini 0801 in the LOAD state but soon after that it disconnects and starts writing.
And does the blue led start blinking during writing?
 
Thanks Lunar...I've checked out the 0801's on Amazon I'am looking at this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B00F5WP990 - I've no need for internal memory or GPS this one seems to be the base model so it'll do fine.

Any comments on it.
 
Thanks Lunar...I've checked out the 0801's on Amazon I'am looking at this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B00F5WP990 - I've no need for internal memory or GPS this one seems to be the base model so it'll do fine.

Any comments on it.

It should be fine, I think at those prices they are excellent value, nice to get it delivered via Amazon too. Hope it turns out to be a good one.
 
especially if it comes with firmware 20131026 and you use a solid Class 6 card you "should" be one of the few stable happy customers!
 
I have also ordered a standard system without GPS or internal memory. I ordered direct from e-prance because I wanted an extra lead and base plate.
Typically 2 days after I ordered them the extra parts became available from Amazon UK damn.... grrrrr
 
I have also ordered a standard system without GPS or internal memory. I ordered direct from e-prance because I wanted an extra lead and base plate.
Typically 2 days after I ordered them the extra parts became available from Amazon UK damn.... grrrrr

Usually the way.. though I did know a couple weeks ago that they were in the process of shipping quantities of stock to Amazon, they sell a lot of other stuff too, so will likely see some of their other best selling items also being fulfilled by Amazon in due course.

If they haven't shipped, you could always try to cancel and re-order via Amazon ? in any case... before they were shipped by Amazon, in the UK, E-Prances camera's were usually distributed by a company in Portsmouth, all 3 of mine were dispatched by them, and my friends 2 cams too, delivery time was about 7days. So the fact one now can get a dashcam from their Amazon Store and get it delivered within a couple days or next day if your a Prime Customer (best £49 I ever spent) is much better IMO. Certainly quicker than waiting 3 weeks from China.

TBH I cant fault Amazon, I just wish they didn't flout our ridiculously lax tax laws, but that's the UK governments fault for allowing it. Currently waiting for them to dispatch my PS4 & game bundle.. a little xmas pressie to myself ;-)
 
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especially if it comes with firmware 20131026 and you use a solid Class 6 card you "should" be one of the few stable happy customers!

hehe..lol... yes.. if his cam works 100% that'll make 2 of us, as it's been very lonely here all on my own..lol.. I just hope Eprance don't forget to send my commission this month...lol
 
Have just posted a photo of my Mini 0801 installed :)
It is in the thread on here entitled "Where did you mount the camera? Post your pictures".
 
One last question, memory cards...which ones work OK and which class.
 
Hi lunar update to my cam with gps no int mem .ver 20131026 . 16 gb Samsung class 6 from amazon.
Thanks for your software links downloaded & installed registrator did not work but soon as I installed your K-lite everything working good no virus issues on your downloads . Program's great a lot better than supplied one.
My first problem has appeared after removing card and copying files to comp ,when I reinstalled card message appeared Card initialising then said Card absent went into settings re- format but no little wheel going round as it did when I first installed card back to screen still says card absent then did re set from menu no differant. Put a old 1gb card in worked o/k now refitted the 32 gb Samsung card now that's o/k now not sure what to do does it seem as though Samsung Card may be Faulty anybody had this fault.
Buzzy
 
Usually the way.. though I did know a couple weeks ago that they were in the process of shipping quantities of stock to Amazon, they sell a lot of other stuff too, so will likely see some of their other best selling items also being fulfilled by Amazon in due course.

If they haven't shipped, you could always try to cancel and re-order via Amazon ? in any case... before they were shipped by Amazon, in the UK, E-Prances camera's were usually distributed by a company in Portsmouth, all 3 of mine were dispatched by them, and my friends 2 cams too, delivery time was about 7days. So the fact one now can get a dashcam from their Amazon Store and get it delivered within a couple days or next day if your a Prime Customer (best £49 I ever spent) is much better IMO. Certainly quicker than waiting 3 weeks from China.

TBH I cant fault Amazon, I just wish they didn't flout our ridiculously lax tax laws, but that's the UK governments fault for allowing it. Currently waiting for them to dispatch my PS4 & game bundle.. a little xmas pressie to myself ;-)

Unfortunately its shipped a few days ago... never mind... at least it will be the latest version with the most recent firmware and be stable.:)
 
Hi lunar update to my cam with gps no int mem .ver 20131026 . 16 gb Samsung class 6 from amazon.
Thanks for your software links downloaded & installed registrator did not work but soon as I installed your K-lite everything working good no virus issues on your downloads . Program's great a lot better than supplied one.
My first problem has appeared after removing card and copying files to comp ,when I reinstalled card message appeared Card initialising then said Card absent went into settings re- format but no little wheel going round as it did when I first installed card back to screen still says card absent then did re set from menu no differant. Put a old 1gb card in worked o/k now refitted the 32 gb Samsung card now that's o/k now not sure what to do does it seem as though Samsung Card may be Faulty anybody had this fault.
Buzzy


Pleased to hear your partly there..

No.. I've not had any issues recognising cards,

May be worthwhile downloading the official SDFormatter tool from here, and give that a go. always useful anyway, as it let me format 1 card that win7 just wouldn't format for some silly reason a while ago. The other popular tool is the HPUSBDisk format tool that's also easily found on the net.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

As its working again, it may just be one of those things, try giving the contacts on the card a clean, not a lot else you can do really, I have several Samsung cards and IME they outperform many others I've bought, that's why I buy them. You have to make sure you get genuine Samsung cards as there are a lot of fakes out there, I had one myself about 4 or 5 months ago off ebay..load of junk... Snails in my garden were faster..lol

I use other makes of cards too, and have generally had few issues with any of them really, though they can vary a lot with regard to actual write speeds that's achievable.

Only one card gave me a little trouble which was a Transend 32gb class 10 card, which gave a write error on my first camera, it turned out, it had one corrupted sector, but a full format mapped the sector out so it wouldn't get used again, and its been fine since. I tried it in one of the camera's for a couple of days and it worked okay, though I now have all Samsung 32gb class 6 in all 4 of my camera's, purely because tests I did myself showed they generally had better write and read speeds than some of the other brands.

As for their reliability it's probably a bit early to tell, but they haven't failed in almost 2 months use. and one in particular has really been hammered..lol as it's used in my 1st mini 0801 camera I bought, which is used for home security watching my car and the driveway, and it's been running for nearly 2 months almost constantly 24/7. I truly expected it to pack up ages ago..lol,
 
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Unfortunately its shipped a few days ago... never mind... at least it will be the latest version with the most recent firmware and be stable.:)

That's what I like to see.. a person with plenty of PMA ... positive mental attitude...lol Lets hope it does indeed work well when it arrives. :-)
 
I was reading more like copying the files off the card onto pc, using a USB adapter that looks like a mem stick you just insert the card into the end of adapter then insert adapter into USB slot . I did think I had used the safe remove option but after not 100% sure I choose the right drive you just do it without thinking about it. I purchased the card separately from Amazon following a link from a post here when I recieved card did a test using the H2test program to check if it was genuine seemed to pass o/k.
Is your suggestion to re- format the card with the link you provided if the card did get corrupted will this fix it or would it have destroyed the card .
Buzzy
 
Well I just pulled the trigger on a 0801 camera from Amazon and a Samsung 32gb class 6 card...hopefully everything will work OK.
 
Where are people getting the 1026 firmware?
I bought from E-Prance (Amazon direct), GPS, NO internal memory.
 
There seems to be a time settings bug in firmware 20131026 (shipped with my 2 x mini 0801s last week): no matter how many times I set the local time, after power-on-off cycle the time is back to 5 hours ahead of my local time, which just happens to be local time in Shenzhen.

Anyone else noticed this?

Edit: On closer examination, I see there's a mysterious first field in Settings>Date/Time -- perhaps this is the offset from GMT? I've just set mine to "02", as my local timezone is GMT+2. Will give it a test and see if it makes a diffs.
 
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