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Glass
3rd March 2015, 12:28 AM
In keeping with my previous reviews of Shit that Glass bought on 't internet here is a quick short term use review.

I had a scarey near miss with someone crossing a road in front of me while I was trying to merge into traffic. You are supposed to give way to pedestrians if you are turning a corner and they are crossing. I think in this case I was going across a dual lane to a median stip and then merging into traffic. This person seemed to think I would see them as I was looking in the other f'ing direction and merging.

anyway having someones hand prints and possibly face print on my hood is not something I want and I figured if I am going to run someone over I want it on video (sarc).

Techmoan is the go to guy for dash cam/action cam reviews. He rates this one as good value for money. I think he is using it himself atm. At USD $70 its cheap but surprisingly good.

I scored one and have been using it for about 3 weeks. A118 Novatek 96650 1080P. It also have 1 other model designation. But there are also fake ones out there.

Like all cheap chinese the case is fairly basic plastic. Comes with few bits for mounting. It has a mounting with 2 parts. One is the camera to windshield mount. The second part is a kind of triangle thing which is supposed to be a cable tidy for the 12v power lead. It also comes with some adhesive loops for routing the power cable.

I am using the camera mount only. Not the cable tidy. It mounts with a small pad of adhesive which says is 3m. Very thin but surprisingly works well. I mounted the camera just behind/infront of the rear view mirror on top of the dotted stuff they paint along the top of the screen. Could be for defrost? Don't think so. Anyway from the outside you are hard pressed to see the camera in the window. The lens peeps out just below the black spotted area.

You can plug an external GPS in it if you want. I don't. It has a G meter which picks up shocks (an accident) and then locks the current video files for review.

Menu is easy enough to use if you can read it. I can with a mag glass.
It has a small colour LCD on the back and I have mine positioned so I can glance at it and see what the camera is doing and that the video/screen is working.

I was a bit suspect about the SD card they provided me. It is branded but I'm not sure if it's genuine. It did not want to delete old recordings on the SD card and replace with new ones when full. I did swap it out for one I bought locally. 32Gb Class 10. I am still waiting to fill up the card and see it if over writes. I think I have had it running long enough so I probably should pull the card and see what's on it.

Known issues:
Some people have had problems with heat. The camera sits in a hot car and cooks. Batteries explode and LCD screens die.

I am in a pretty hot place and the temps have been above 100F/40C quite a few times. The adhesive does not appear to be softening or failing and the camera seems to be working ok so far. Its' early days for sure.

As for the batteries, I don't know. They do have one model that is driven only by capacitors which is supposed to be better for hot climates. Is very new model, not sure how good it is.

SD cards do not over write. Some odd thing with the cards. Some do not automatically over write the video. It can be the card itself or the size of the video segments, 1 min, 3 min, 5 min. Fix is to change card or try each video segment size and see if it fixes it.

So far I am happy with it. does what I want. I'm thinking of buying a second one to either look out the back window or to look into the cab and film whats going on there, in case of traffic stop or road rage or something.

I scored it from a place called foxoffer. I think they are singapore based but I got the camera in a reasonable amount of time. Had some questions answered as well. I actually just bought something else from them. Hope to have in a week or so.

Glass
3rd March 2015, 07:01 PM
I should point out it's not actually a 1080P camera. Uses some digital up sampling or something. But quality of video is very good. Is fisheye or wide angle lens. It also has a mic for recording in the cabin. Can be turned on and off with a button on the front.