Thinkware F50 vs A119

Its the form factor of the A119 that i really like. I can see i can install that and it would be almost invisible. The F50 looks nice but i am not sure it cam be so well hidden.
Depends on the make / model of car, as to which dashcam form factor is most suitable. My previous car windscreen had no dotted zone worth mentioning & no sensor housing. It was perfect for mounting a tube style cam high up against the rooflining, & central behind the rear view mirror.

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My current car has a dotted zone & a sensor housing. Impossible to mount a cam against the rooflining, unless well off-centre, which I dislike. It's possibly better suited to an A119 or similar, mounted on the dotted zone, with the lens peeping out below the dotted zone. Though it would still have to be mounted off-centre, thanks to the sensor housing.

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OK here's an upload of the video.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1Kbr8sVFRSMWkJfTm1faGJ0dFk

Wish I'd not looked at it on a PC lol :oops:
The Thinkware PC viewer doesn't work well on Windows 10 - the video is really jerky.
Registrator Viewer works a lot better.

Have to say the quality doesn't seem to be as good as my 903.
Acceptable but not outstanding.
Got a call in with Thinkware to see if this is normal quality but as its quoted the same as for the F770 I expected a little better.
 
... its quoted the same as for the F770 I expected a little better.
The F770 front cam is £200, at which price I expect it to have a lens, cpu & sensor specification superior to that of the F50.
 
I do not see the GPC Module listed on any of the sites that have the F50 for sale.

Does it use the same GPS Module as other Thinkware units?

Also, where's the best place to buy in the US?

The 140* F rating concerns me, living in Arizona.

The 10 second event recording lead in is very appealing.

RodeoGeorge
 
Yeah, maybe a little too simplistic to say the f50 & f770 quality will be the same, but I still think my 0903 video quality was better than the f50.
Note that the f770 is quoted as having the same Sony sensor and resolution as the f50.
The camera you pictured isn't a f50 either is it? The f50 mount is a little more obvious than the one you've got.
i do agree that the design of the sunshade on the car has a bearing on what camera will work best so on some the f50 looks best and on others the a119 may be more discrete.
Not helping the op make a choice are we ? :p:p:p
But it does support my previous point that if you read all the posts on this forum you just get confused and can't make a decision!!!!
 
The 140* F rating concerns me, living in Arizona.
The specification says it has integrated thermal protection, so it'll automatically switch off if the limit is exceeded.

Which is only likely if you leave the car parked with parking mode switched on, which is not recommended for any dashcam in hot weather.
 
The camera you pictured isn't a f50 either is it? The f50 mount is a little more obvious than the one you've got.

I have an SGZC12RC not an F50. The 12RC is much smaller & more expensive than the F50. The F50 is one of the DashCams that would be on my shortlist if I was looking to buy a sub-£100 cam today.
 
Yeah, maybe a little too simplistic to say the f50 & f770 quality will be the same, but I still think my 0903 video quality was better than the f50.
Note that the f770 is quoted as having the same Sony sensor and resolution as the f50.
The camera you pictured isn't a f50 either is it? The f50 mount is a little more obvious than the one you've got.
i do agree that the design of the sunshade on the car has a bearing on what camera will work best so on some the f50 looks best and on others the a119 may be more discrete.
Not helping the op make a choice are we ? :p:p:p
But it does support my previous point that if you read all the posts on this forum you just get confused and can't make a decision!!!!

Thinkware rep told me the F50's Sony sensor is a smaller/lower end model compared to the one in the F770.
Judging by the night videos I took F50 lacks the dynamic range the F750/770 has for sure
If you are looking for pure video quality the A119 will be better than the F50, but the F50 with the hardwiring kit is one of the few truly set it and forget it devices. (don't really have to worry about formatting)
 
F50 video quality really seems subpar for a 2016 device.

 
So after looking at the video on the PC I have to say that whilst the centre of the picture looks good there is a definite drop off in focus as it goes towards the outside, to the point that I can't read parked cars number plates.
In addition there seems to be a problem with contrast, it's not dealing too well with light and dark, again meaning I can't read the plates of cars coming towards me at all.
There is also some noise apparent.

In its defence I'd had to place camera back away from the windscreen, fitted to a plastic cowling containing electronic gubins so it was also in the shade.
I've moved it to the windscreen now, so I'll report back if there is an improvement.
If not I'll be talking to the UK Supplier to get their advice.
 
Thanka for this. I was hoping to place an order by tomorrow so if you get chance to test by then it would be great. Had my finger on the buy button as well!!
 
And now....more confusion......big price drop for the a119 with gps on amazon uk, fulfilled by amazon from spytec. Which means they will both be same price again (about 83 GBP) to include GPS and hardwire kit. Arggghh
 
I'm not really technical on the internal workings but how they described it to me at a show we did is that a normal camera will place files anywhere on a memory card (in any order) however this has been developed to put every file in order on the card which eliminates the corruption risk. It's different to the H50 though as when you put a memory card in the PC with the H50 you couldn't view any files so you had to use the Viewer Program. The F50 i believe you can view the memory card files without using the viewer. I haven't actually tried the F50 camera at all yet. Only seen them and the locking boxes we have for them.

The X330 is also format free, strangely though the X350 isn't! Guessing they had to use the processing power to operate the WiFi of the unit instead.
 
Having driven the car today with the f50 located in a better place on the windscreen my initial view is that at lower speeds and stable light the performance is more than acceptable. Looking at the whole journey I did notice a couple of things.
As the speed increases I found the number plates of oncoming cars become more and more illegible to the point where at 50mph (100mph closing speeds) I can't make them out at all.
Sunlight also seems to cause the number plate to become washed out, especially if oncoming cars are driving into the sun.
Now I'm unsure if this is normal or not. Maybe all cameras suffer with this and I'm being ultra critical? Something I really try not to do!
Perhaps this is down to outright resolution - I believe the a119 has a better resolution? Or maybe it's down to the bit rate the camera records at?
Hopefully someone can answer that, but I'll talk to Thinkware tomorrow to get their view.
 
Having driven the car today with the f50 located in a better place on the windscreen my initial view is that at lower speeds and stable light the performance is more than acceptable. Looking at the whole journey I did notice a couple of things.
As the speed increases I found the number plates of oncoming cars become more and more illegible to the point where at 50mph (100mph closing speeds) I can't make them out at all.
Sunlight also seems to cause the number plate to become washed out, especially if oncoming cars are driving into the sun.
Now I'm unsure if this is normal or not. Maybe all cameras suffer with this and I'm being ultra critical? Something I really try not to do!
Perhaps this is down to outright resolution - I believe the a119 has a better resolution? Or maybe it's down to the bit rate the camera records at?
Hopefully someone can answer that, but I'll talk to Thinkware tomorrow to get their view.

that would be expected result I think, what bitrate are the files recorded at?
 
How do I find out what the recorded bit rate is?
And to help the OP, would you expect the A119 to perform better in this respect?
 
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