Dash Cam - Binatone DC200 HD - Feel at ease on the roads

Product Information

GPS – allows you to pinpoint your exact location at the time of the crash. It will also show the route you travelled, and your speed. This could be useful for building up a picture of exactly what happened in a crash. You don’t like wires: Three cameras means a lot of wires to guide and hide. Cabling in the rear camera means removing the headliner or carpet.

MAIN MENU Press Down button to select White balance menu, then press OK button, the following screen is displayed. Press Up or Down button to select the mode which you want, then press OK button to confirm your selection and return to the menu. If you selected “Auto”, device will adjust white balance based on colour’s temperature automatically. The cheapest dash cams typically record footage at a lower resolution, either HD (1,280 x 720p) or Full HD (1,920 x 1,080p) and skip the fancy features that you'll find on premium models. The main specification that you need to look out for here is the video resolution, so for this, the recording needs to be 1080p at least - 720p just isn't good enough. All of the dash cams mentioned here are 1080p or above, but other image quality features come into play to make them a quality product.While older models typically required the user to manually save or tag the appropriate clip in the event of an accident, new G-Sensor-based incident detection technology has taken over, and now takes care of this automatically. Next up is material. Read through the product description for Binatone DC200 HD Dash Cam to get an understanding of the materials the product is made from. Some materials will obviously be known for delivering better quality item than others. You might also have decided that you’ll only accept a product made from a particular material. The first is brand. Looking at the brand of the product is often a really good indicator for judging product quality. For example you’d expect a much higher quality product from a brand known for providing excellent quality than you would from an unknown or even a budget brand. We were happily surprised by the video quality. The cameras can record Full HD footage in both directions, capturing video that’s smooth, sharp and clear, matched by decent audio. The interior camera occasionally struggles in bright sunlight, but that’s a small criticism of otherwise impressive performance. The front camera can also go solo to shoot in even more detailed 1440p.

The next step for us was to look at all of the products that fall within the Dash cams category, of which we found 22 products at Argos. So we pulled together all of the prices of these products to analyse the average prices as well as finding the cheapest and most expensive options. You have a small windshield: Because it’s larger than many dash cams, the DashCam 76 can feel like an obstruction in vehicles with shallow windshields.You don’t need a complex camera: If you only want to capture video of the road, there are simpler dash cam options for a lot less money.

Some dash cams have internal power, or can easily be charged using external power sources. However, the rest use the cigarette lighter/USB port in your vehicle or need to be hard-wired, meaning they do use your car's battery. Naturally, we cannot crash a vehicle to see how well the dash cam detects collisions. Instead, firmly tapping the dash cam can simulate a collision, allowing us to see what happens when footage is saved. It is also possible to trigger a recording by powering the camera with a portable battery and tapping it against our desk. It may seem rudimentary, but it works and keeps our insurance company happy. Although you shouldn't be overly swayed by bells and whistles, it is important to consider what features you're getting for your money.

Recording and storing footage

You want seamless connectivity: Connecting to a smartphone isn't always straightforward, with the Wi-Fi connection often failing to establish during our testing. A higher resolution doesn't guarantee better quality – we've uncovered higher resolution dash cams that produce dire footage. We've also found dash cams at 1080p that are clear and detailed. Dash cam ease of use If the worst were to happen, and you need to prove your innocence, the dash cam’s footage could do exactly that. This footage can also be set to include your speed, along with the time and date to help reinforce the validity of your evidence if blame is disputed by the other party. As well as monitoring the road ahead, dash cams can be used to record out of the rear windscreen too, recording footage if you are unfortunate enough to be rear-ended by another motorist.

If a dash cam doesn't come with an app, you can still save your footage by transferring it to your computer. MAIN MENU 4) Sharpness setting Press down button to select Sharpness menu, then press OK button, the following screen is displayed. Press Up or Down button to select which you want, then press OK button to confirm and return to the menu. “Strong” means the clarity of image is the best. 5) White Balance setting As same as video white balance setting. There are also a wealth of features to consider, including a touchscreen display, a companion app, GPS, parking surveillance, voice control, sat nav and what3words to name but a few. As you can imagine, pricing is one of the most important factors of any purchasing decision. We can find the perfect product for our needs, that fits the brief in every single way. But if it doesn’t fit our budgets, we simply can’t (or at least shouldn’t) buy it. All dash cams support at least HD resolution (1,280 x 720 pixels) but it's most common for dash cams to record in Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels). Some can record up to 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels).Lastly, some dash cams can be permanently installed in your vehicle and hard-wired, giving them a constant power supply. When paired with a special parking mode, this enables the camera to sense impacts and record footage while the car is parked, potentially gathering useful evidence of your neighbor’s poor parking. Can a dash cam drain your car battery? Because powered is delivered directly from the car’s battery, the system remains active even when the engine’s off. It will be overkill for many road users, but if you want a complete, all-in-one camera to monitor your car at all times, the Nextbase iQ is as clever as they come.