ZeroEdge Z-Edge Z3 Dashboard Camera Review

ZeroEdge Z-Edge Z3 Dashboard Camera Review

Buy it at Amazon: ZeroEdge Z-Edge Z3 Dashboard Camera [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Clear hi-res video, audio can be a bit muffled, parking monitor is great.

The camera comes with a suction cup mount, 32GB misroSD card, 34" microUSB data cable, 12.5' miniUSB power cable, 4 adhesive cable guides, and dual USB cigarette lighter car charger.

The camera for the unit has a 145 degree wide angle lens and can record HD video at 720p, 1080p and 2K at 30, 45, or 60 frames per second. Along the top you have the microUSB charging port, a 1/4" mounting hole for the suction cup and output A/V port for viewing the video. The LCD screen is 3" by 1.75" and on the sides you have the controls. The microSD card gets inserted in the bottom under a rubber door. Make sure the gold contacts are inserted first, facing the LCD. There is a battery in this unit that will charge while the car is running. Though once unplugged from the power, the battery doesn't last long. Maybe 15 to 25 minutes depending on how long the LCD stays on. This is actually not too bad for a dashboard camera and other cameras I've used last 10 minutes or less.

The suction cup mount simply screws into the hole at the top and the camera swivels on a ball joint so you can position it the way you want. When the unit is plugged into the cigarette lighter port and you turn the car on, the camera will start up automatically and can be set to begin recording right away. The top right button is the one-touch microphone mute button so you can switch the mic on/off on the fly for privacy.

The settings menus were easy to navigate and straight forward. The camera can accept cards up to 64GB and performs best when the card is class 6 and above. On a 32 GB card, at the highest resolution you'll be able to record about 280 minutes of footage, after which the camera will over write the oldest footage unless the footage is "locked" which can be done manually or through various detection modes. With the G-shock sensor is on, when the camera detects bumps that it thinks is a crash or accident, it will lock the recording and prevent it from being overwritten. The G-shock sensitivity can be set to low medium or high. I usually start in high mode and see how many events it captures and bump the sensitivity down as necessary so I don't have too many "locked" videos.

The motion detection setting will automatically start recording footage when the camera is on and it detects motion. It will record 20 seconds and then stop unless the motion continues. In parking monitoring mode, after the camera is shut off, if it detects a slight vibration, like from a bump to your car, it will switch on in battery power and record for 25 seconds. There's also a still camera mode so you can take snapshots and playback mode for both photos and videos; the camera has a speaker so you can hear audio during playback.

The video quality of the recordings is very good. Not only can you read license plate numbers within a few car lengths, but the wide angle captures both sides of the road well. Even at night the video is clear and you can read road signs and see the road in low light conditions. The audio picks up sound in your car pretty well and is relatively clear, but you do get quite a bit of road noise which makes things a bit muffled. At 1 minute intervals and each 1080p file takes up about 100 MB and 2K files take up about 150 MB. Overall, the camera captures enough detail to see what's going on in the road in case of an accident in hi-res video. It was simple to setup, straightforward to use, and it was easy to retrieve the video recordings by plugging it directly into the computer via the microUSB cable or removing the card and using a card reader.

Buy it at Amazon: ZeroEdge Z-Edge Z3 Dashboard Camera [Affiliate Link]