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I recently ordered this dashcam from Amazon. Although apparently dispatched from China, I was amazed that it arrived in just 7 days.

There’s a very good review of it on Techmoan’s site so the following is just a quick summary of a few points I’ve found.

I wasn’t able to tuck it out of the way behind the rear-view mirror as there wasn’t enough space so I had to mount it alongside the mirror. It’s way above my line of sight, though, so it isn’t even noticeable during normal driving.

The USB power cable tucked neatly behind the roof lining and side pillar but I found that I had to take care there was no strain on the USB plug/socket on the dashcam or the electrical connection became intermittent. The socket is on the part of the dashcam that stays attached to the windscreen though, so once it’s in place, it shouldn’t need to be disturbed.

The “manual” is pretty useless – the functions of most of the buttons is best gleaned from Techmoan’s video. Unfortunately, there are a few different versions of the dashcam (with & without internal memory and with & without GPS) and the functions of the buttons don’t seem quite the same with different models so there is some trial and error.

I wasn’t able to get the PC to “see” the dashcam as normal removable media (as shown on Techmoan’s site) but that may only work with cameras with internal memory. I bought the model with GPS but no internal memory. It’s not a problem, though, because I’d rather slip the micro-SD card out of the camera and use an external reader.

The sliding connector between the camera itself and the windscreen mount (which also houses the USB power socket and the GPS electronics) doesn’t seem all that robust so I doubt I’ll be taking the camera off the mount more than necessary.

Although it runs quite hot in use, hopefully it’s not excessively so – time will tell.

One slight disappointment is there’s a lot of reflection in the windscreen from the top of the car’s dash and from the steering wheel. It’s not something you notice while driving but it’s more noticeable on the dashcam video. The camera uses a very wide angle lens (135 °) so it’s not really feasible to fit any sort of lens hood.

For it’s main purpose as a “crash for cash” deterrent, though, the image quality is fine.

This short video shows my first test run. Youtube quality is quite a bit less than the actual footage on the micro-SD card.

Update:

I’ve just spotted dashcamtalk.com with plenty of good detail for this dashcam and a link to an improved manual and, hopefully, any future firmware updates.

The USB-to-PC connection does work. I was trying to do it through the USB connector on the camera mount. It only works through the USB socket on the camera itself.

I’ve moved the dashcam to the left of the rear view mirror so the LED won’t be a distraction at night. I’ve also replaced the supplied cigarette lighter adapter lead with a more compact separate USB plug and an ordinary 3 metre long USB A to micro USB lead. Although I still can’t close the ashtray compartment, I think it looks quite a bit neater.