5" Gps + Car Dashcam - Dvr Review

[muratremix]

This is a first hand review of following device:

http://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/GPS-Sat_Nav_Devices/Portable_GPS/Car_GPS_Navigator_-_5_Inch_HD_Dashcam/?review=true

I bought it for $87 and paid about $20 for shipping (EMS or UPS). I choose UPS to receive it faster, but at the cost of paying 17.7% tax + duty to government. If you order via EMS, it may deliver to your home without any extra tax+duties. I order it on 3rd october (which was holiday in China), they sent on 4th october, I received it this morning (5th october) about 11 am.

If you are familiar with WinCE GPS devices (called PNA), you'll get used to this one pretty quick. Screen is decent quality with good contrast and brightness. If you mount it into front window, somewhere near your mirror, you get both good signal and good location for recording video. Because it is a 5" device, it doesn't block your view much. During my tests, It connected to 9 to 11 satellites in Bangkok, which is enough to be accurate.

Specification of Device is:

5" Resistive (All wince gps devices are resistive) screen with stylus or good old fingernails to operate.

500 Mhz Sirf IV cpu (600 mhz Sirf V is a bit better, but this one is not bad at all)

128 Mb ram (stay away from 64Mb devices)

WinCE 6.0 with direct access to WinCE desktop (You can run wince applications, access control panel, unrar / unzip things!)

1280x720 @30 fps DVR camera.

2x MicroSD slots, one for DVR camera, another for optional GPS software.

No GPS navigation software bundled. You need to get your own somehow.

You can run iGO, Garmin (Still can't get it to work) and several other GPS software in this device. However, dealing with them is not easy. You need to spend sometime in forums to download non-genuine software and maps. Of course you can always try to buy an original software on a sd card from authorized dealer, except Garmin which doesn't work on other hardware.

I haven't tested fm transmitter feature, but it should work as is. I used igo primo 2.0 for gps navigation and I got zero luck with unlocked Garmin. Locked, licensed Garmin cards won't work on this device unless you use a modified one. Good thing is iGO can run on internal 4gb flash storage. However iGO maps of Thailand is pretty bad. It is nowhere near my Sygic experience on my iPad but you can't mount iPad on a car easily or hold in your hand while driving in Bangkok traffic. Still, if does the job. If you enter destination and everything befoe you leave your house, examine the route in iGO software, you won't get any suprises.

Video quality is not perfect. It is 1280x720 resolution but it is probably upsampled / interpolated. You can't read license plates of cars front of you but video is smooth. If you buy this device for real HD quality dash cam only, then don't. At this price point you can only get either one GPS or one good quality car DVR. Not both. There is another device with 7" screen and non-HD VGA dash cam dvr for $99, however it has a worse video quality compared to this device and lens is 75 degrees instead of 120. (Wide angle lens is preferred on car camera, 120 is magic number). If you don't use GPS feature after a while, or prefer to use your smartphone for this, you can still use DVR functionality. It isn't like you buy some toy and throw it away.

Unfortunately I can't put a sample video at the moment because my true ultra docsis connection is cut itself, waiting for tech to come tomorrow. I'll upload a video whenever I can. For product images check the product link above. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase.

[muratremix]

Update:

I thought Sirf V is only 600 mhz, but it seems there is 500 mhz model aswell. This product claims Sirf V (newest) cpu running at 500 mhz. System info shows Sirf V on shell, Sirf IV in windows ce control panel.

Sample videos is on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HACzxnTKwDI&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lMBg5Vjf6k&feature=youtu.be

Video quality may be improved if I put it somewhere else or clean my windowshield. Because I had better video quality during my tests in home.

[hansje1980]

Can u post some vids of driving by night as well? Thx

[muratremix]

Can u post some vids of driving by night as well? Thx

i will when i have a chance to drive at night.