HD DVR Dash Camera
Price: £9.75 free shipping
Manufacturer: generic/unknown
Model: HD-DVR
Run By: 12V cig lighter socket or lithium battery (unknown capacity)
Vendor: seller via ebay
Description: High definition DVR recorder with night vision.
First Impressions
Dash cams are everywhere these days and are now they have become cheap enough for any budget. Disregarding high street stores, it's possible to buy a dash cam for as little as £7 which seems phenomenal value for a video recorder.
Of course the old adage of "you get what you pay for" still applies here. The higher end cams can cost well over £100 so high quality components and video quality are expected.
At under a tenner this little dash cam seemed worth the gamble.
I have seen this exact model in a number of petrol stations at £20 so I consider this a bit of a bargain - that won't mean anything if it turns out to be crap! (spoiler)
This particular dash cam seemed quite a popular model and seemed to show up all over ebay and Amazon. It turns out that this model is only one of a group of generic dash cams which seems to appear the most.
The Postman comes
The dash cam arrived in a couple of days from a UK supplier.
The outer retail box has HD DVR plastered all over it so I was expecting some good quality video.
Elsewhere on the box was a list of the dash cam's features in bullet point form:
To save time here is a photo..
Inside the box besides the main camera was a 12V adapter for plugging into the car, a Nokia style phone battery, a thing for sticking it to your window and a crappy instruction booklet.
The HD DVR dash cam is constructed from old yogurt cartons by the looks of it. Not very strong and cheap in the extreme.
I don't imagine this device would survive many accidental drops to the floor.
The front face of unit features an array of LEDs and the main camera lens. Nothing fancy whatsoever, just a row of standard 5mm IR diodes and a fairly standard lens aperture.
Memory Card slot
Underneath the dash cam lives the LCD display panel which conveniently folds away when not in use. It does have the ability to swivel 270° which could be considered as handy.
Much like the main case the LCD display is cheap and flimsy. Just how long it would last is anyone's guess. It's worse than the fold out displays that used to come with camcorders years ago.
Along one side of the device is a cover under which the USB power port and on the other lives the SD card port .
Curiously there is also a blank in the moulding where an HDMI socket should be??
Odd? I thought this was HD? come back to that later...
USB power on the left, a place for HDMI on the right
All in all this thing is pretty shocking when it comes build quality.
It's lightweight sure, but it also feels like a Poundland kids toy (no offence to Poundland there)
Pretty crap then
An interesting position
Testing
Well it's pretty bad to be honest. The camera is awful, the frame rate lacking and the sound quality is absolute shite.
What was I expecting....really?
Here are a couple of test videos highlighting the crap quality.
Each video was set to run for three mins each.
During that time not one car number plate could be identified! Really useful in an road incident situation I must say!
Glare and reflections on the M60 Motorway
Moisture in the air on the M56 motorway
The sound quality in both videos was dreadful, although that's not the most important part of a dash cam recording,
Whereas the all important video quality was pretty awful. The camera lens didn't seem wide enough to get everything in shot and the low resolution ensured that I never got to make out any details. - and the frame rate was crap.
Night Vision
Not exactly night vision.
The IR diodes only illuminate a very short distance in front of the lens when recording at night. It's not that good really. Once the car heads off down a country lane without Street lights the video is hard to make out.
Yeah I suppose its better than nothing and it's very cheap but if you had to use clips from this to bring a prosecution I would be very doubtful about its usefulness!
Switching modes and making some still photos is a little better but equally as unsatisfying.
Reviewing saved memory clips is OK when in playback mode. Despite a lack of control buttons, it's relatively easy to scan through the videos and the picture quality doesn't seem as bad when viewed on the tiny screen.
Running the HD DVR on the internal battery
One nice feature I thought was the ability to run this camera on an internal battery rather than be tethered to the cigarette lighter socket all the time.
On a full charge the camera will record for about 30 mins before it dies and switches off. - enough time to record any exterior damage in an incident etc.
In playback mode the battery lasts for about 55 mins or so before giving up.
Fake Nokia phone battery there
Does this dash cam have an identical twin?
Although not immediately obvious at first this dash cam has an identical twin.
This alternative dash cam features an HDMI socket so the pictures can be beamed straight on to your telly.....this is what the blank part was on the casing earlier. - where the HDMI goes.
Ultimately this means that the only way to view the recorded footage is by either watching it on the titchy screen or removing the SD card and sticking it in a laptop or PC - not as convenient as an HDMI connection on the cam.
But really, it's no great loss considering the poor quality. Not worth hooking up to a bigger monitor anyway.
It keeps saying HD....
Is it really HD?
That depends on the interpretation of the word HD.
1080P this ain't!
720P.....maybe?,
I can't be bothered to find out
Memory Card Buckaroo!
One rather annoying flaw in this dash cam is its memory card slot.
Not only did I have to jam a piece of card between the slot and the case so it would recognise it, it actually spits the card back at you causing all recording to stop!
Any random knock or bump to this device can cause the SD slot spring system to engage, forcing the card to eject and make the plastic cover fly open! It can give you a little surprise much like the game Buckaroo does.
This dash cam is therefore unreliable (that's an understatement)
Overall it's probably not worth the tenner I spent on it and the time I spend writing this review.
Are all of these type of dash cams as bad as this one? Have I just got a bad one?
At the end of my review something happened.....the silly little side cover broke off!
It just came off in my hand...
Time to chuck it in the back of the cupboard and walk away...
Rating: ✅ ✅ 2 out of 5
Bloody awful dash cam.
I won't be using it anytime soon.