I provide honest ratings and reviews on tech, toys, and consumer home goods that I've purchased and used. Reviews are based on hands-on testing and personal observations. All opinions and comments are my own.
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Takeaway: Compact, clear HD video and audio, wide angle view; easy to set up and download footage w/ plenty of basic dashcam features.EXCLUSIVE 40% off code below!
Takeaway: Fun and easy to fly, great balance, durable, RC car option. The drone comes with 4 replacement rotor blades, a remote control, 2 batteries, USB charing cable, a power adapter, mini screwdriver and instruction manual. The drone is made of a lightweight plastic and weighs only 4 oz with the battery installed. The rotors do not have blade guards on this unit. There are 4 foam wheels which makes the landings on this quadcopter pretty soft and it can also be driven like a car. There are two models of this drone: one with a 2.0 MP camera and one without. The camera is mounted in front and angled slightly downward and can take still photos and video. The version with a camera comes pre-installed with a 4GB microSD card. Be sure to charge the batteries before first use, which takes 20-30 minutes. Each battery will last 6-8 minutes of flight time. While the battery is charging, there will be no indicator light on the USB charger, but when the battery is full, a red LED light will illuminate.
The remote control requires 4 AA Batteries which are not included. Use the included screwdriver to access the battery bay on both the remote and the drone. When the drone is grounded, the left joystick (rudder) will act as the control for the car. The other buttons on the controller can adjust trim, take photo/video, change the acceleration speed (short press left-shoulder), turn on/off the LEDs (long press left-shoulder), and activate 3D flip mode (right shoulder button).
To bind the drone to the remote, turn the drone on and set it on a flat level surface. Make sure the throttle is all the way down, then switch on the remote. You'll here the remote beep and the light on the remote will be flashing. Calibrate the remote by pressing the throttle all the way forward and then bringing it all the way back. Then it's all ready to go. While on the ground, you can drive around using the rudder. I found that the foam wheels don't grip rough terrains well, and it seems kind of sluggish on asphalt and pavement. On smooth hardwood floors, however, it moved much faster.
Lift off and hovering with this drone is smooth and easy to control. I was actually impressed with how stable this drone is compared with others that I've used in its class. The drone's flight and balance were quite good and this drone would make for a great starter drone for folks new to drone flying. The camera quality is as expected for only being 2.0 MP. It's a bit grainy and at times choppy with the occasional refresh rate blur, but it's still fun to watch the videos after your flight. The only thing to note here is that the video can only be activated when the drone is in flight. You can't start a video when the drone is grounded. A 3 minute video takes up about 500 MB. The unit does record audio, but mostly you get the sound of the rotors. Keep in mind that you don't get a card reader with this unit, so you'll need to supply your own way of getting the images and video off the card. Overall, this drone is fun and easy to fly. It's well-balanced and it seems to take hard landings pretty well.
Takeaway: Okay video, good interior/exterior view, lacks some functions, good viewer app. This unit comes with the dual camera DVR, a holder bracket, 3-axis suction cup mount, 11.5' cigarette lighter microUSB power cable, a 4-pin GPS antenna with 5 ft cable, and 3 extra adhesive sticky pads. Note that it does NOT come with a microSD card, which you must supply in order to record any video. The manual recommends Class 6 card or higher up to 32 GB. You won't be able to enter menu settings or view the live video feed without a card installed.
The unit measures 5"W x 2"H x 1.25" D. It is made of a plastic shell with a thin powdered aluminum finished front. While I like how it looks, the finish scratches easily, especially from the plastic mounting bracket when you put it in or take it out. On the side of the device that faces the windshield you have a 140 degree wide angle forward lens that can pitch up and down 20 degrees and a speaker. On the side facing into the car you have the 2.7" LCD, power button, menu navigation and mode buttons, the inside facing camera, the OK button, and a microphone. The ports are o nthe right hand side under a rubber door and includes: 4-pin port for the GPS, microSD card slot, and microUSB charging port.
Assembling the unit and mount was straightforward. Make sure to insert the microSD card with the contacts facing toward you. The suction cup is pretty firma dn I haven't had it fall off my windshield yet. The one thing I didn't like about this design is that with all the cables plugged in, the rubber door just kind of hangs there in the way. I would prefer exposed but flush with the surface ports over that.
With a new card inserted into the unit, the camera will need to format it first. This step is required since the camera loads some software on the card called X2Player, that you run on your computer to view the video files. When the camera starts up, it will begin recording automatically by default and I didn't see a way to switch this to manual only. You can, of course, always stop recording manually and start it again when you want. For whatever reason, my unit was not in English when I first powered it on. If this happens to you, to change the language, press the menu button then scroll down to the icon with the person and speech bubble; click 'OK', then select English and click 'OK' again.
In the menu you can set the various options like date and time, audio recording, and g-sensor sensitivity to lock videos from being recorded over in case of an accident. You cannot set the loop length for the videos which is about 90 seconds long per video clip. Each clip on dual camera recording takes up about 125 megabytes but you can choose to record only one camera at a time instead of both.
On the LCD screen when the camera is running, you'll see the live feed from the recording, the date and time, the current speed, and the direction of travel. If the GPS is not hooked up, you will not see speed or direction. Note also that GPS location, speed, and direction will not appear in the video during playback, but you'll be able to see that information when using the software to view the video. The program for viewing the videos, X2Player, is pretty cool. You'll see all the aforementioned data, can choose to view side-by-side dual feeds or only one feed at a time. You can even toggle on a map that tracks your trip based on the recorded GPS location data points, though in general, the path is not exact and tends to misplace you a lot. Each trip is logged as a single line in the bottom left quadrant of the window, but is then broken out into the smaller 90 second clips on the bottom right quadrant. The software also allows you to save the video clips off the card piecemeal or all at once.
The video quality is decent but not high definition. There's definitely some graininess to the video and even within one car length, the license plate of the car in front of you will be unreadable. Despite the low resolution and relative darkness of the videos, they're still useful in case of an accident and the inside facing camera may be useful for car share drivers like Uber and Lyft. This is overall a fairly nice dashboard DVR but it lacks some features like motion detection, parking monitor, loop length, and a still camera mode.
Takeaway: The base is magnetic so I can stick it to my dash where there's metal underneath vs typical suction cup or sticky mounts. The unit on a whole was smaller than I anticipated, about the size of a tic-tac container. There are only 3 buttons but they allow you to power on, pair, change the volume, skip tracks in a playlist, answer calls, mute, and redial the last phone number. The drawback here is that you have to remember how to do all those things when you want to use them, but it makes the interface a lot simpler allowing the unit to look minimalist, clean, and stylish.
The paired quickly to my phone using bluetooth discovery mode and NFC connection. The connection and sound quality was clear and smooth. I had no problem with stuttering, digital noise or dropped connections when in range of the receiver. Like most bluetooth devices, once paired, the receiver remembers the last device it was paired with. You can store up to two devices in its memory so it will pair automatically when it detects those devices again. You can also pair two devices with the unit at the same time which is interesting. Not sure how useful that is since only one person can stream audio at the same time, but I guess it'll make for some interesting playlist battles. I appreciate the fact that the power adapter that came with it has two USB ports, so that you can charge your phone at the same time the receiver is operating.
The main drawback to this product is that with older cars, you probably won't have an audio-in AUX jack, so you cannot use this product... at least not in your car. However, since the USB cable can be plugged into any standard 1000 mAh USB power adapter, you could still use this as a bluetooth receiver with any speaker system that DOES have an audio-in jack or combine it with an appropriate adapter.
