kwolf
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- Mar 13, 2013
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Since there are not any reviews of this Uniden DC11 dash cam out there besides what's on Best Buy's website, I figured I'd write something up on it. Uniden's website has no information on this camera, and it seems like the model was released very recently and is only being sold at Best Buy, where it is currently on sale for $29. I ended up returning it because the video quality wasn't good enough for its intended use as a Christmas present. It seems like Uniden is still not serious about their dash cam business, which is a shame because their radar detectors have been great.
Included in the box were manuals in English, French, and Spanish. There is a suction cup mount, USB cable, power cable, and the dash cam itself. The suction cup mount is the basic kind with an arm on a plastic ball joint allowing you to position the camera. The camera can easily be removed from the mount. The power cable plugs into the USB port on the left side of the camera.
The camera itself has a 1.5" screen which was clear and easy enough to read given the size. Unfortunately, the screen stays on for at least 2 minutes when the camera receives power and is quite bright. The shortest option available for "screen saver" is 3 minutes. On the left there is up, menu, and down. On the right there is OK, Mode/Lock, and Power. The Red LED light on the left is illuminated when charging, and the Blue LED blinks when recording. The LED is quite bright when viewed directly yet completely invisible when viewed from an angle due to being sunk into the chassis. The chassis feels about as cheap as you'd expect for a dash cam at this price point, with a lot of flex and creaking sounds when pressing buttons. The menu interface is snappy and responsive, although there are not many options. You can change the loop recording between Off, 1, 2, and 3 minutes. As far as adjusting the image quality, the only options you get are changing the resolution (max 1080p) and exposure value. There is a motion detection option but I didn't test that feature.
The main issue with this camera is that Uniden claims the camera to be 1080p yet the video looks worse than many 720p dash cams. Part of this is probably due to them using MJPEG versus an actual video codec and part of it is that the camera is likely using interpolation to achieve 1080p. The audio is very bass heavy and there is a high pitched buzzing present as well. It picks up a ton of road noise. One positive thing I can say is there did not appear to be gaps between files like with many other cheaper dash cams. The below video was shot at the default settings (0 EV, 1080p resolution).
Hope this saves someone the trouble of buying one from Best Buy to see if it's worth the price. At 1:20 in the above video I'm roughly 1/3 of a car length away from the blue pickup in front of me. Even though I was that close and it was a WV plate (which are pretty much the most legible plates in the US) it is still extremely difficult to make out the tag. There's just not enough detail in my opinion and I don't think it's worth the price, even on sale.
Included in the box were manuals in English, French, and Spanish. There is a suction cup mount, USB cable, power cable, and the dash cam itself. The suction cup mount is the basic kind with an arm on a plastic ball joint allowing you to position the camera. The camera can easily be removed from the mount. The power cable plugs into the USB port on the left side of the camera.
The camera itself has a 1.5" screen which was clear and easy enough to read given the size. Unfortunately, the screen stays on for at least 2 minutes when the camera receives power and is quite bright. The shortest option available for "screen saver" is 3 minutes. On the left there is up, menu, and down. On the right there is OK, Mode/Lock, and Power. The Red LED light on the left is illuminated when charging, and the Blue LED blinks when recording. The LED is quite bright when viewed directly yet completely invisible when viewed from an angle due to being sunk into the chassis. The chassis feels about as cheap as you'd expect for a dash cam at this price point, with a lot of flex and creaking sounds when pressing buttons. The menu interface is snappy and responsive, although there are not many options. You can change the loop recording between Off, 1, 2, and 3 minutes. As far as adjusting the image quality, the only options you get are changing the resolution (max 1080p) and exposure value. There is a motion detection option but I didn't test that feature.
The main issue with this camera is that Uniden claims the camera to be 1080p yet the video looks worse than many 720p dash cams. Part of this is probably due to them using MJPEG versus an actual video codec and part of it is that the camera is likely using interpolation to achieve 1080p. The audio is very bass heavy and there is a high pitched buzzing present as well. It picks up a ton of road noise. One positive thing I can say is there did not appear to be gaps between files like with many other cheaper dash cams. The below video was shot at the default settings (0 EV, 1080p resolution).
Hope this saves someone the trouble of buying one from Best Buy to see if it's worth the price. At 1:20 in the above video I'm roughly 1/3 of a car length away from the blue pickup in front of me. Even though I was that close and it was a WV plate (which are pretty much the most legible plates in the US) it is still extremely difficult to make out the tag. There's just not enough detail in my opinion and I don't think it's worth the price, even on sale.