Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It's almost winter here at the base of the mountains in Salt Lake City Utah and winters here can be treacherous and crazy for driving in icy/snowy/windy conditions. People slide around all over the place on black ice. My husband and I leased a brand new Mazda CX-5 this year. It's a beautiful car and I want to take good car of it. I bought this camera with the main purpose of using it when driving in bad weather or when I'm driving alone late at night. So far I'm very pleased with how well it works! First, it's very small, but don't let the size fool you, it definitely has a wide view of everything out of your front windshield! Small is better for a camera like this because it won't obstruct your view. I played around with where to put it and ended up mounting it somewhat behind/under and to the right of my rear view mirror. It was SUPER easy to mount and I was very impressed with the suction cup! I have had bad experiences with suction cups before (think shower caddy) but this one is super! And it's really easy to move around if you don't like where it is. There is no limit to where you could stick it and point it to get the view you want. Just play around and find what you like best. Some reviewers seem to be confused about the battery in this camera. It is NOT meant to power the device while you're driving!! The battery is for catching those loops after you shut your car off and walk through the parking lot. I really love this feature btw. It makes me feel so much safer walking through dark parking lots at night! That means you have to have this plugged in to your cigarette lighter AT ALL TIMES. This is one of the reasons I took off 1 star. While the cable is PLENTY long, it's a pain to situate it such that is isn't in your way. In the manual it shows a diagram of how you should run the cable so that it doesn't hang down or get in your way, but it does not include anything to secure it to the car to enable such a configuration. I'm not about to tape cable to my leather interior all the way from the rear view mirror to the inside of the center console where my cigarette lighter is so for my test runs out of the box, I just let it hang down (see my pictures). Since I bought it mostly to use at night or on bad weather days, I plan to keep it in my console and use it when I need it, then put it back. For those who plan to keep it running all the time, you may need to find a better, more permanent solution for the cable situation. The other reason I took of a star is because of the instructions. They're not great. I was sent an email with a link (supposed to be a PDF with better, more up to date instructions) but when I click on the link I'm taken to a website for AVA cables. Dash cams aren't even listed as a product sold on the website and there are no PDFs in sight. Fortunately, anyone who can operate a smart phone or a digital point and shoot camera can figure out how to use it, which is what I did. As for the actual functionality and picture/sound quality, this thing is great, especially for the price! The picture is very clear! I had absolutely no problems right out of the box. I stuck it on, plugged it in, turned on the car and the camera knew just what to do! The video is smooth and clear. The files are very easy to drag and drop and play on my computer (running Windows 10). On my very first test run with it out of the box, I nearly got in and accident when the car in the next lane decided to change lanes right into me. Didn't signal or anything! I honked and he quickly moved out of the way but it was close! Had he hit me, this footage would've been INVALUABLE when dealing with insurance claims or police reports etc. The reason you don't hear sound on the video (in reality it's quite clear) is because when he started to move over into me and I honked, I issued a few choice words that I don't think are appropriate for a product review. :) Sorry! But this is the real deal! One day out with this baby and it almost caught an accident! (NOTE: The date and time are not correct because I hadn't set them yet - again, straight out of the box test). Also, sorry if the video is grainy, looks like I need to learn how to format videos for Amazon upload. The video on my computer is crystal clear! You may notice that I was driving directly into the sun at this time of day and there is some glare. Part of that is just the nature of shooting video into the sun, but the other is I had forgotten to peel the protective film off the lens. Whoops! Like I said, this was RIGHT out of the box! All in all I'm really pleased with this camera and think I'll have a lot more peace of mind driving around with it. The night, photo and zoom functions all work great! If you run into problems with set up, this company's customer service is good. I emailed them and they responded quickly. As long as you have appropriate expectations for what this is and what it isn't, I think you'll be happy with this camera!