Car Dash Cam, JC Beauty[New Upgrade Version] 170°Wide Angle Front and Rear Dual Lens Digital Mini Camera DVR 1080P Full HD, For Video Loop Recording Dashboard, Built in G-Sensor, Park Monitor (Silver)

I had been meaning to get a dash cam for yonks and I looked here at reviews for many units but could never make up my mind. In the end I opted for this one. I was extremely busy when it arrived and I just glanced at the instructions and decided it would take me a while to set it up - and I didn't have the time - so I left it in the boot of my car for about three weeks.I had driven from my home near London to Amsterdam overnight and I arrived at my destination very early in the morning. It was then, sitting in an underground car park with an hour to spare, although tired after driving through the night, that I decided to have a look at setting up the camera. I didn't even really read the instructions - got it out of its box, connected it to the cigarette lighter socket with the thought that maybe the factory settings would be right. So I put in an SD card, switched it on (well, turned on the ignition) and it worked. Perfectly. I had a look at the rear-facing camera but decided I didn't want to mess about trailing the wire back to the rear window, so, for nearly three months, I have been using it in forward facing mode only.I have kind of forgotten I have it. It just sits there on my windscreen and when I turn on the ignition, it fires up, with a little beep, and starts recording. It is set to film in 5 minute segments, and as soon as the five minutes is up, it starts recording another segment, and so on. Until it fill the 32Gb card I bought. It will fill the SD card in about two hours or so and then it just starts recording over the oldest five minute clip and just carries on.I didn't quite realise this was how it worked because I left Amsterdam and drove to near Bordeaux in one hit - 800+ miles. There were a couple of things I saw and knew I had recorded as I was passing through Paris. So when I was in Bordeaux, I got the SD card out of the camera, stuck it in my laptop and saw a directory, completely full of video files. Then I realised how this worked and, since it was well over three hours from Paris, the couple of things I knew it had recorded, had been overwritten. (You can press a button when an incident happens and it will lock off that bit of video so it can't be over-written but I haven't done that yet. If there is a hard braking, or an accident [it knows by the G-forces] then it will automatically lock that bit of video. Luckily, I haven't experienced that and I hope I don't).Word of warning! The sound is incredible and it records everything. Yes, so, when someone cuts you up and you question the marital status of his parents, it will record it. But, what we also noticed is that when we have been somewhere - say to a "friend's place" and we're driving away and I make some comment like - do you think she could take cooking lessons. That dinner was vile! She hasn't a bloody clue." EVERYTHING you utter in the car will be picked up in crystal clear sound! So be careful if you decide to show the footage to someone!It's a bit of a thrill the first time you use it which, as I said, I just stuck the unit onto the windscreen, plugged it into the cigarette socket, and it just worked without me having to figure anything out. You will be astonished at the quality and clarity of the footage - and the sound. But then, watching footage of you getting in the car in the morning and making the same journey, day after day, gets a bit boring, so you just forget it and I never check the footage. I know it is there if something happens and I need a record of it.Coming back from Bordeaux, we used the channel tunnel and it was fun to show some American friends who were visiting what it was like to drive the car onto the train and off at the other end, and how slick the whole operation is. So I saved that onto my computer so it wouldn't be over-written.We are off to Bordeaux again for a holiday and it will be running the whole time. It's just reassuring to know, especially if something did happen and it won't be, in a strange country where I don't speak the language, my word against some other driver as to exactly what happened. It will also show the two hours of driving before the event, if it happened, so it will be clear that I am not a reckless drive. But the footage will actually be boring - 500 miles, driving through the night, on virtually empty motorways. I have decided I will spend half an hour setting up and testing the rear facing camera, in case we get shunted from behind.I cannot recommend this dashcam highly enough: it has performed faultlessly and it has been stuck to my windscreen in temperatures from -6C to +30C temperatures. So, my review is after using this for nearly three months in all weathers, including snow and ice, all light conditions from pitch black to bright sunshine from dead ahead and it works perfectly. And for what I paid for this unit - it's an absolutely steal.

This is a clone or similar looking product to a few slightly more expensive units for sale here. But being cheaper it is better value.I bought this to replace a unit I bought about 4years ago the lithium cell in it finally gave up and the old unit was losing date and time causing recording issues.So this unit. It feels more solidly built than the first unit I had. Similar size, again taking a 32 GB TF / micro SDHC card, which I simply transplanted from my old dashcam, and this insisted I format it, which I did, and it started recording perfectly.So it has a wide front field of view, and in the dark it picks up very well, having a larger front lens than my old one you'd expect that. The rear camera has a good field of view, not quite as wide as front but sufficient. Video quality of both is very good, and again I have this set at 5 minute cycling.However the unit has a function to "lock" files and I have it set at medium impact detection, and I have a feeling it is interpreting a bumpy road as a possible accident! I may need to set the sensitivity down otherwise the memory card will fill. The rear camera also has a lead to connect to the reversing light so it auto switches but I need to extend it to reach for that function.What is nice about this unit is you can select the view, either full front, front and small rear picture-in-picture, side by side front and rear (a bit squashed) or full rear, which I find very handy. The rear picture is reversed on the display (as if looking in the rear view mirror) so can be helpful with reversing or getting a wider view of rear. Again the dark performance of this is pretty good.The cabling is more than sufficient for a large saloon (I have a C5) and rather than use the supplied mini B adapter, I have a normal Mini B USB that I plug into a dual adapter as I have so many things needed a USB power feed. Ignition controlled lighter sockets means it automatically switches on and off.It also appears to have an auto vibration detection recording mode, which seems quite useful if you encounter a bump and run while parked. The front and rear recording is pretty comprehensive, and that for me is a priority, over the fairly useless (and potentially self incriminating!) GPS front only recorders for sale. You are as likely to be rear ended as hit something ahead of you.Overall highly recommended, you do need a 32 GB card for it. I will update this review when I have discovered its total looped recording time, and how to deal with locked files.