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BEST CAR DASH CAM - G1WH - Review

2014-08-16
hey everyone this is Jimmy would James review her welcome back to another review so last year I was involved in an auto accident with an 18-wheeler but rather going into details about that after the incident I sure wanted to give a dashcam now I don't believe there's a mainstream brand or model out there that the average consumer is aware of but I did some research and I believe I found the best dashcam based on my tests and also from other car enthusiast recommendations that most of these dash cams are from China with some skepticism since they're so cheap but the one I purchased is the g1 WH from amazon.com for just $52 now they very impressed greatly but around $50 is what you should aim for with a 32 gigabyte micro SD card which is sold separately it's another $20 bringing my personal total to $72 for the entire package again much cheaper than what I thought before I started my research so without further ado we'll get started we'll start by going over the physical parts of the camera first with the very top having a mini USB port for charging and also viewing content on your computer once connected audio and video out via three and half millimeter cords your on/off switch and to the right of that is the record slash action button now the very left is the micro SD card slot and far-right features the mini HDMI port now nothing on the bottom but the front features a 2.7 inch wide screen with a really low resolution of 960 by 240 now the high definition screen by any means but for a dash cam it works perfectly fine now finishing up the up and down arrows are on the left and the access to the menu is on the far top right and the mode button below to toggle between recording video or taking photos and we'll get into these settings and what the menu looks like pretty soon now going over some of its features the dash cam does continuously loop video when the SD card is full the camera deletes the oldest file automatically and continues its cycle and for the manufacturer this camera can take up to 32 gigs of storage no more and it's highly recommended to use a class 10 card for recording again I bought mine just for $20 another great feature you leave this in your cigarette lighter and when you turn on your car the camera starts recording automatically and of course this would turn off once you remove the keys from the car and leave overall it's truly a set it and forget it kind of concept and it's worked every time since owning this now other features includes motion detection and also night vision which I'll again show you shortly and one last item here there is a built-in battery now not considering I would a video record without the DC chord but inventive and emergency the dash cam can easily disconnect from the suction cup mount and just by sliding it over and I can go and snap photos of an accident scene if need be now one of the most important things you should consider is the lens that they use in a camera now this has a 140 degree wide angle lens and be sure to purchase the g1 WH and not the g1w the latter is only 120 degrees and the two models price difference is less than $10 in most cases now going through the menu settings and screens here the first up is the video size for 1080 720 and so on next is disabling and enabled loop recording at different time intervals for me after every three minutes the video saves and becomes a file on the SD card wdr is wide dynamic range and you can toggle that on or off then next is the exposure settings and after that is motion detection perfect for when someone walks in front of your car the camera does record that brief instant and turns off after there's no movement now if you're parked in a busy area more than likely you have to plug this into a cigarette lighter outlet that's always on and it's a perfect feature for catching possible vandals or hitting runs in the camera's direction now recording audio on or off which is self-explanatory and next is another unique feature here it's a g-force sensor allowing the camera to stop the recording and save the file immediately if the camera senses a sudden collision or drastic shake and you can change the sensitivity on this to your liking but I personally left mine on medium the less than the window is to decide if you want it date stamped the video or not which I suggest having on now going to the second set of menu options here there's many more self-explanatory items from changing your date and time to changing the video output from pale to mtsc when using the HDMI cable a screen protection allows the screen display to turn off after a certain amount of time and the IR LED is truly not an infrared light it's just a flashlight feature that does nothing to illuminate the road when driving at night and the last menu item here is to format your memory card which I highly suggest before using the camera and the very last item on the main screen you can toggle between again recording your video like I'm doing here or switch to photo mode and the last is basically display mode where you can watch all your saved content so here's the moment that you've been waiting for is the actual video and just as a warning there's nothing really stellar from the video footage it's just my fiance going to work or me driving around town going shopping or so whatever it may be but as you can see for a camera under $100 with all those features the video is stunning no question it's not crystal clear or it looks like my video from a Nikon but I think it does enough justice to determine who is at fault or any other bizarre driving under way work or home now you can for the most part and makeout license plates that are in front of you and in worst-case scenarios you can make part of the license plate but least you have been making model the vehicle and the suction cup has worked very well without falling once and the recent hot summer days and night driving here is just enough in my opinion it's not true night vision you can say although the listing and box mentions infrared but on the inner roads at night you can still make out the lines lights and other vehicles so an event of an accident you can still see who is at fault or at least see what had happened and then driving in other miscellaneous dark areas it does become quite dark now regarding the movie files themselves they do save as MOV file formats for me and they save at every 3-minute interval now each clip is 3 minutes long and on average it's about 300 megabytes per file at the full 1080p resolution so overall I'm personally really impressed from this device from being really cheap as it is and not to mention direct from China as well which sometimes you do receive some sketchy stuff from there set it and forget idea and the continuous loop recording which works great for someone not as aware when the membercard is full or if the camera is even recording and I know I would personally have that the same issue as well and before ending the video here I would highly recommend doing some research on the seller as there's been some knockoffs being sold both online and of all places on Amazon and the reason why this video had taken so long for me to put out was indeed I received a fake g1w model which felt completely cheap hollow and the video quality was just horrible and even at times it didn't even record then trying to get a refund direct from the Chinese seller was even a joke so I hope this video helped you in some way I highly recommend getting a dashcam in general as there's missile you know not so honest people sometimes out there in this world and you just never know when it comes to these accidents so please take your time to like and subscribe but more importantly share this video with someone that might find dashcams useful and last find me on Facebook Google+ and Twitter this is Jimmy with Jim's review room take care out there bye
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