Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is the 5th Hikvision IP camera that I have purchased and this particular model has the best picture quality and functionality that I have seen so far. I'm going to tell you what you should know about this camera in a nutshell and Hikvision cameras in general. First and foremost, Amazon is not an Hikvision retailer so that Hikvision may or may not honor their warranty. Having said that, I never had a single issue with all 5 cameras (except one that I will explain later). The recent 4 cameras I got, two from CCTV and another two from NetView, they were all US version which allowed users to install firmware when they become available, whereas some other retailers from Amazon may sell you the Chinese version, or some call them gray market versions. This is what you need to watch out for. Gray market Hikvision cameras are fully functional when you receive them. There is nothing wrong with them except you can't upgrade the firmware. If you do upgrade them, like the mistake I made for my first camera, you will brick it (or break it). It would literally become unbootable and you can use it as a paper weight. Granted you pay less on the price but in return, you will be stuck with the default firmware. This is definitely everybody will need to think twice before placing their older. Usually, the Gray Market, or Chinese version of the camera will bear "CH" in the serial number. You, of course, will not see the serial number until you receive it, but you can contact the reseller before you place an order. My advice to you, pay a bit more to ensure you can enjoy the future firmware upgrade. Quality wise, this Dome camera (among with one bullet camera from Hikvision) is excellent. I'm referring to the housing, picture quality, and functionality. The camera does not come with the comprehensive user manual so you'll have to download the PDF from the company. Yet, if you want the basic features, you can get the camera up and running within 30 minutes. You'll need to spend a significant amount of time to fine-tune it if you really want to dig deep and explore its potential but you'll be surprise of what this little gem is capable of doing. I can spend days typing the functions but you'll probably get bored, so I will leave it as is Couple of things to keep in mind. To setup the camera, you will need to download a configuration tool called SADP (Mac and PC) to discover the camera in your network, the default IP is some silly 192.x.x.x segment but once you use the tool, you can modify it to your network segment anyway you like. Be sure to change the port that works for your router too. Generally, people use port 80 as the default unless you have already used it for something else. 8088, 8000, or 2000 work just fine for most cases if you want to remote access your camera from your workplace. Granted you will need to do a port forwarding from your router to define the port. For instance, if your IP camera IP is 10.1.1.12 and TCP port number is 8088, then you will have to "tell" your router the exact same thing. Therefore, if you attempt to access to your camera externally, you will have to do something like : http:// yourWANIP address:8088. It's also useful to assign a static IP address to your camera too so in case you need to restart your camera, it will stick with the static IP instead of something else. One thing that I really like about this camera, is that it has an internal MicroSD slot which you can record video continuously or by events. The max capacity is 128GB and it will overwrite the card when it's running out of space. This way, you can playback the recorded video anytime. The quality is just excellent. Of course, you can record it to a NAS or NVR too but that's a different story. In my case, I do both. I record it on the MicroSD since I have a 64GB sitting around, and I also record it to my QNAP NAS and retain the footage for 10 days before it's overwritten. You have all the flexibility as far as recording goes Hikvision does make excellent cameras with reasonable price. it's hard to find good valued PoE cameras like Hikvision. I was a bit skeptical first but once I try their product, I just keep on coming back for more. If you find this review helpful, please give me a thumbs up and I will keep on writing. If not, just ignore me and don't rate it.... LOL. Jokes aside, if you have questions, drop me a line and I'd be more than happy to answer them if I know how. Cheers. Update: 6/1/2016 It's been more than 10 days after I deployed this camera and it has given great service. I never lost any connectivity at any given point. The internal MicroSD card has been recording continuously without issues. All replayed video was playing so fluidly without stuttering. The camera received direct sunlight from around 3:00pm. Trust me, the temperature around that time was really hot and the unit continued to record well without issues. I didn't reach up and touch the camera, but I would assume it was operating in pretty high temperature too. so, in that sense, this camera is quiet reliable. I'm attaching an additional two clips snapped today, for your reference. Last but not least, I ordered another Hikvision camera from NetView, which made a total of 3 within the month. it tells you how happy I am with Hikvision and Netview. Update: 10/6/2016 I have installed another one (same model) on the side corner of my house, so I can have a better view of the people's faces when they approach my house. The last screenshot provided is NOT in its highest resolution but will give you some idea of how vivid the picture is. The contrast is simply amazing. Oh yes, the other Hikvision cameras installed a while back ago. I have not yet, had the need to restart anyone of them for months. They are really reliable.