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At one time you would not be able to get a good quality car dashcam for under £200, much less a dual camera model like this one, but now prices seem to be in freefall as more and better specified new models come on the market. Priced at a £49.99, this dual lens high spec camera system seems a particularly good buy.
As insurance fraud grows daily one way of protecting yourself from driving-related scams is to install a dashcam. Dashcams such as this one are positioned discreetly pointing forwards through the front window and record all your driving activity. The dashcam turns on automatically when the car is started and off again a short time after the engine is turned off. It records continuously in short recordings onto a memory card that seamlessly dovetail together when played back. When the card is full the camera records over the oldest recording. The point of having a mass of short video recording files it to make it easier to find the one you need to examine. The camera should have a G-Sensor that will automatically flag any recording containing a possible impact and not record over it.
Packaged in a large and rather upmarket box aside from the front camera there is also the small rear camera and cable set, rear camera mounting pad and screw kit, cleaning cloth, cable clip set, mirror mounting straps, short mini USB cable, long mini USB charging cable, car power adapter, cable mounting splunger tool, User Guide, Thank You card. The User Guide, unlike most, was well printed, easy to read and actually informative. I include a scan of the key pages on the end of my unboxing video, switch to fullscreen and pause as needed to read it.
Unlike with most dashcams, this system is supplied with a second small waterproof camera that is attached by cable to the front camera and can be positioned in the back window or above the rear licence plate to continuously record activity behind the car in addition to the forward picture recorded by the main camera. The video from the rear cam can be viewed on and is recorded by the front camera. The front camera has a wide angle 170-degree angle of view and the rear camera just 120 degrees. The front camera has a maximum resolution of 1080P, the rear 640v480. HDR can be selected in the settings to boost the colour range of the video and images displayed. Audio recording can also be selected if required and replayed through the built-in speaker.
The device is like an oversized driving mirror, and indeed so it is, that is held in places over the existing rear view mirror using the elasticated loops supplied. When in place it will serve as a normal mirror but within it is a 5" touch screen which can show the current video or recording from either camera with a picture in picture mode available. The device is configured by selecting from the on-screen options. On the rear of the mirror and facing forward into the car windscreen is the main camera which can be rotated and positioned to the best viewing position. On the other side is the speaker grill. On the bottom edge of the device is the Off/On button whilst on the top are the mini-USN power port, rear camera port, micro-SD card slot and reset button aperture.
I was pleased to see the front camera does not have built-in infrared night lights, as so many low-end dashcams do. LED illumination is a bad thing because when driving at night any built-in lights on the camera will just reflect from the windscreen and burn out the image. The rear camera does have four small infrared LED's but if the camera is mounted outside this will not be an issue.
Setting it up was not too hard and the menu could be navigated on the five-inch screen reasonably well. Fixing the camera to the mirror on my Toyota Aygo was easy enough and the cables were easily long enough for both cameras. The integral mirror camera is small and discreet, a distinct advantage as it makes it harder to spot from outside the car. The built-in display is large enough to make navigating the configuration menu easy enough but in any case, you should only need to configure it once. Fitting the second camera was more of a bind as the cable has to be wound through the car from front to back but once it is done there should be no need to adjust it again. For best results, the rear camera can be optionally wired into the reversing light circuit to allow it to automatically display on the screen when the reverse gear is selected. The rear camera is waterproof and can be mounted either inside or externally above the number plate. However, the dashcam can be used just with the main camera, which is the way I use it, to avoid the fuss and bother of the second camera.
For Full Review see my Blog: https://tinyurl.com/y24zveaa
