APEMAN 1080p Dash Cam C450

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This excellent new budget dashcam from APEMANarrived nicely presented in a simple but attractive product box. Inside was the camera itself, USB car charging cable, adhesive mount, suction cup mount, car charger, USB cable, and User Guide. The User Guide is nicely designed compared to those usually supplied and well printed too but my tired eyes still found it small and hard to read.

Insurance fraud is on the rise and one way of protecting yourself from driving-related scams is to install a dashcam. Dashcams such as this one are positioned discreetly pointing forwards through the front window and record all your driving activity. The dashcam turns on automatically when the car is started and off again a short time after the engine is turned off. It records continuously in short recordings onto a memory card that seamlessly dovetails together when played back. When the card is full the camera records over the oldest recording. A good camera will have a built-in G-Sensor which automatically records impacts and secures that file against overwriting.

The camera is quite small and on my car can be hidden in front of the driving mirror. The camera attaches to the windscreen with the supplied mounts and in my tests, this worked well. Like most cameras this one has a built-in battery which is designed only to allow the device to power down correctly and to give short term coverage should the car power supply fail in the event of a crash. For normal operation, it should always be powered from the car power port or USB socket. The camera has a speaker and microphone which is useful in an incident if you have the presence of mind to observe and announce number plates or external events not captured by the camera. The dashcam has a G-sensor, a must for any dashcam, which will ensure that impacts or other events are not overwritten by other recordings on the card. The camera takes a micro SD card of up to 32GB to record onto and you must get a good quality high-speed card. Class 10 is best if a card is too slow the camera will not be able to write to it properly.

The camera lacks a GPS sensor, a disadvantage for some users but not for me as I found watching my journey on the map is a novelty that soon wears off. Also, should your device fall into the hands of the police after a crash they will be able to note and use against you any previous speed infringements or driving errors caught by the GPS. Unlike many budget dashcams, this one does not have any annoying LED night lights which cause glare on the windscreen and reduce visibility if turned on.

Video results are good for the price and it offers multiple resolution levels. At the maximum FHD resolution of 1080p which is about the minimum capable of producing worthwhile results for a dashcam, the picture is good but not outstanding. It has a WDR mode which improves image quality by enhancing shadow and highlight details. Several looping time lengths are available and I suggest 3 minutes for best results. The G-Sensor trigger will lock and the flag the current video file and is also used when in Parking Mode. Pressing the OK button will take an instant still picture switching when in Picture Mode.

The camera offers Parking Mode, triggered by the G-Sensor. This sets the camera recording even when the engine is off (this may depend on how your car power socket is configured) to catch incidents but as with most cameras with this feature system latency means you usually miss them. Some dashcams offer motion detection triggering in parking mode but not here.

This is an entry-level dashcam and priced as such but provides all you need from a dashcam plus some extras besides. Video quality is fine for the price and for the £29.99 price this is an excellent buy.

The Good
FHD video 1920×1080
Microphone
G-Sensor
Auto on/auto off
Attractive design
Large 3" screen
170-degree wide-angle lens
Parking Mode
WDR mode

The Bad
No GPS sensor
No memory card supplied
No Video Out


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