Paul Iddon
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2016
- Messages
- 1,784
- Reaction score
- 1,405
- Location
- Preston
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Dash Cam
- Viofo A139 Pro 4K, A129 Pro Duo 4K, A229 Duo 2K, & NB 522GW
Thanks to James at Z-Edge for letting me use their T4 dashcam for this review.
First - the English weather is close to it's worst at this time of year - and I would expect towards summer, the quality would be more like @Sunny will have with the wonderful sun and blue sky he had for his review.
However - this is the unboxing of the camera:
As I mention there - the one thing that really strikes me is the large 4" touchscreen. The real estate is massive compared to anything I have seen before. If you want stealth - then look elsewhere. The unit is a large but does look very smart - and in use, there is a blue vertical stroke of light on the front, which again negates any chance of hiding it being there, but is a cool look!
Everything in the box is as expected - but it's nice of Z-Edge to include a memory card in the package, along with a car trim tool to help with installation. While I mention here the size of the front unit, the rear camera in comparison is quite small and doesn't take up a lot of the rear window. The cable to connect front to back is considerably thinner than the cable for my Viofo Duo cameras - installation because of this is a little easier for travelling the wire the length of your vehicle. This rear cam is attached by a 3M sticky pad, which keeps it nice and firm. The front cam is however attached to the glass by a suction cup. I have found a tiny bit of "bounce" though I could try to tighten the mount a little more - this would probably cure that. However, it's not really noticeable as it is so not an issue for me. The mount is easy to put in place and has a simple mechanism making siting the cam a breeze.
The main thing to discuss is the front cam - and that 4" touchscreen is excellent. It responds well to contact, and the layout of the menus is clear and fast to navigate through. Each section has a large blue button to access the features. From these buttons you can adjust all the usual features and it works very well. You can set the screen to show PiP if you wish, or to show just the front or rear view. The company logo is at the top left, but this can be turned off in the menus.
The front camera can be set to record WQHD 2560x1440P @ 30fps without the rear connected but it will only record @ 1080p 30 fps in dual camera mode - the rear cam also @ 1080p. The 6 element glass lens is a f/2.0 155° wide viewing lens which helps captures more of the road around you. Clarity appears good with edge sharpness as clear as at the centre. The cam defaults to WDR mode (Wide Dynamic Range) which is left on for my samples. I may turn it off however as I use it in the coming days. The camera can save photos at 12 megapixels.
Everything about this dashcam is pretty impressive - the only problem I have is the conditions in the UK - but even so, the recorded video is typical of cameras marketed at this level and price (which by the way is around £140 at Amazon). On occasions, the license plates are good and clear, sometimes not (blurred) but this is attributable to pretty much all brands when the light and driving conditions get dull, so no problems there for me.
Onto the videos - and you'll see that from out of the box, in the first 2 where the cam is at default settings, an 8am journey in dull low light and rainy conditions the cam gives a rather dark result with blue overtones. Clarity is fine though, but you may want to adjust this EV depending on where you are located, and maybe even for different seasons. Audio in all instances is clear - picking up the heater blower, windscreen wipers, passing vehicles, and radio, with no distortion or muffling (depending on your country, you may find YouTube muting some audio).
In all these seven examples, WDR is set to ON.
However, on a night journey three days later, the video was pretty decent - but be aware my windscreen suffers from moist air causing water droplets to show a bit. Rear view is not on for this one (too much rain on the outside, and my car is a saloon, so no wiper on the rear glass).
I then had to travel in the day time, and having noted the light levels earlier, I dipped into the menus and adjusted the exposure to EV+1 and gave that a go:
Finally, I dropped the angle a touch more at changed the exposure again, this time to EV +0.6:
Overall, my opinion for what it is worth, is that this dashcam is very capable and will give acceptable results most of the time. If you want a model with easy access to menus and a large screen, this will be right up your street. It's by far the best screen I have seen to date on a front mounted model (a mirror cam I once used had a great screen). Stealth isn't in the equation though - the size makes it's position very obvious, though if you can position it behind a mirror that would help, but that would mean moving the mirror to get to the said great LCD panel.
Come the summer, I expect video quality will look better as the light levels will allow the sensor to operate at its best.
Paul.
First - the English weather is close to it's worst at this time of year - and I would expect towards summer, the quality would be more like @Sunny will have with the wonderful sun and blue sky he had for his review.
However - this is the unboxing of the camera:
As I mention there - the one thing that really strikes me is the large 4" touchscreen. The real estate is massive compared to anything I have seen before. If you want stealth - then look elsewhere. The unit is a large but does look very smart - and in use, there is a blue vertical stroke of light on the front, which again negates any chance of hiding it being there, but is a cool look!
Everything in the box is as expected - but it's nice of Z-Edge to include a memory card in the package, along with a car trim tool to help with installation. While I mention here the size of the front unit, the rear camera in comparison is quite small and doesn't take up a lot of the rear window. The cable to connect front to back is considerably thinner than the cable for my Viofo Duo cameras - installation because of this is a little easier for travelling the wire the length of your vehicle. This rear cam is attached by a 3M sticky pad, which keeps it nice and firm. The front cam is however attached to the glass by a suction cup. I have found a tiny bit of "bounce" though I could try to tighten the mount a little more - this would probably cure that. However, it's not really noticeable as it is so not an issue for me. The mount is easy to put in place and has a simple mechanism making siting the cam a breeze.
The main thing to discuss is the front cam - and that 4" touchscreen is excellent. It responds well to contact, and the layout of the menus is clear and fast to navigate through. Each section has a large blue button to access the features. From these buttons you can adjust all the usual features and it works very well. You can set the screen to show PiP if you wish, or to show just the front or rear view. The company logo is at the top left, but this can be turned off in the menus.
The front camera can be set to record WQHD 2560x1440P @ 30fps without the rear connected but it will only record @ 1080p 30 fps in dual camera mode - the rear cam also @ 1080p. The 6 element glass lens is a f/2.0 155° wide viewing lens which helps captures more of the road around you. Clarity appears good with edge sharpness as clear as at the centre. The cam defaults to WDR mode (Wide Dynamic Range) which is left on for my samples. I may turn it off however as I use it in the coming days. The camera can save photos at 12 megapixels.
Everything about this dashcam is pretty impressive - the only problem I have is the conditions in the UK - but even so, the recorded video is typical of cameras marketed at this level and price (which by the way is around £140 at Amazon). On occasions, the license plates are good and clear, sometimes not (blurred) but this is attributable to pretty much all brands when the light and driving conditions get dull, so no problems there for me.
Onto the videos - and you'll see that from out of the box, in the first 2 where the cam is at default settings, an 8am journey in dull low light and rainy conditions the cam gives a rather dark result with blue overtones. Clarity is fine though, but you may want to adjust this EV depending on where you are located, and maybe even for different seasons. Audio in all instances is clear - picking up the heater blower, windscreen wipers, passing vehicles, and radio, with no distortion or muffling (depending on your country, you may find YouTube muting some audio).
In all these seven examples, WDR is set to ON.
However, on a night journey three days later, the video was pretty decent - but be aware my windscreen suffers from moist air causing water droplets to show a bit. Rear view is not on for this one (too much rain on the outside, and my car is a saloon, so no wiper on the rear glass).
I then had to travel in the day time, and having noted the light levels earlier, I dipped into the menus and adjusted the exposure to EV+1 and gave that a go:
Finally, I dropped the angle a touch more at changed the exposure again, this time to EV +0.6:
Overall, my opinion for what it is worth, is that this dashcam is very capable and will give acceptable results most of the time. If you want a model with easy access to menus and a large screen, this will be right up your street. It's by far the best screen I have seen to date on a front mounted model (a mirror cam I once used had a great screen). Stealth isn't in the equation though - the size makes it's position very obvious, though if you can position it behind a mirror that would help, but that would mean moving the mirror to get to the said great LCD panel.
Come the summer, I expect video quality will look better as the light levels will allow the sensor to operate at its best.
Paul.
Last edited: