Which cheap dash cam?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

iomex:
I’ve got through quite a few dashcams - you definitely get what you pay for. The £50 area is normally where they’re either cheap rubbish that lasts 5 minutes, or cheap rubbish that works OK. If your budget is £60 then spend £60 but don’t be tempted to go lower. There are some good dashcams out there at the £30/40 mark, but there’s so many bad ones out there. I’ve had issues with corrupted files, not being able to retrieve footage, crashing, freezing, etc.

If the £60 is a figure pulled from thin air, you might consider spending a bit more - the pricier ones can combine multiple lenses. I used to have one trained on the road and another at me, so I could prove if there were to be an accident that I wasn’t pratting about on my phone…

Buying one from a shop (like Halfrauds) and not en eBay retailer would be a better bet, as you have a receipt and far easier to bring it back to them if it packs in.

I agree. Had a few myself (not actually dash cams but sports types so similar) and it’s been a learning curve.

Things I take into consideration are frame rate, the higher the better and the same with resolution. Lens angle… one’s I get are usually around 170 degrees…Lens size (the bigger they are, the more light it can take in) what memory speed it can write at and the quality of memory card you use - steer clear of fakes, plenty of those on the like of ebay.

Each to their own, but that’s the main things I look out for personally.

22

andy_s:
…Each to their own, but that’s the main things I look out for personally.

Yeah, that’s it. I forgot to mention things like that actually. No point getting a dashcam if the low-light quality is so poor it won’t capture a numberplate. Good manufacturers have sample clips on YouTube. Despite mine being a cheap eBay cam, it actually does day/night very well: Daytime w/tunnel: youtube.com/watch?v=jtkxPoZoIqg ← 3:00 in shows transition. Unfortunately, if a clip corrupts for whatever reason, it is lost. Other manufacturers will apply a generic file header, so corrupted files can sometimes be recovered. Also, mine gets upset with heat/humidity changes, such as when you have hot air on the windscreen on a cold morning. Most of them have USB sockets for power, so you don’t need to worry too much if they’re supplied by 24v so long as you have a USB adapter, but then your cab starts filling with eBay junk, so you may as well look for a 24v one. Getting someone to put it onto the battery is good, as it’ll record someone reversing into you while you’re out of the vehicle (only done that on a van, though).