Staying aware.
Sure, you could buy
that cheap dash cam you saw on a link of a link of a link on eBay,
because come on... it doesn't really matter, right? If you do, you'll
regret it when the footage you captured of an accident you were
involved in that wasn't your fault is too low-res to make anything
out. In which case, invest in a cam for your car that comes fully
loaded with bells and whistles. Such as the Thinkware Dash Cam F770.
The Thinkware Dash Cam
F770 is more of a dash camera system than just a simple point and
shoot. The sleek main unit, which fits excellently against the
windscreen itself, comes as either a single forward-facing camera, or
as a pair. With the pair you can install one on your back window too,
giving you full HD 1080p coverage around your vehicle.
And what HD coverage
that is. The quality of the video that the Thinkware Dash Cam F770
can capture is stunning, and Thinkware have clearly placed a great
emphasis on image quality with this thing. Not only is the 1080p
image as crisp as you would hope, but thanks to their use of Super
Night Vision and Advanced Video Clear Technology, the image is
enhanced automatically depending on the lighting conditions. Not only
is the video of night drives clear and watchable, but also in
instances of quick lighting transitions, such as going into and out
of tunnels. All this is captured within a 140 degree field of view,
which is also good.
As you might expect for
a dash cam of this price, there is a lot more going on inside there
than simple video recoding. There is, of course, GPS, the data from
which being automatically logged and linked to your footage, and also
incident recording to grab – and secure on the Micro SD Card –
anything that causes the car to jolt.
One thing to note is
that the Thinkware Dash Cam F770 does not feature a screen of any
kind. Although most high-end dash cams seem to have a small LCD
screen on the rear, to check angle and rewatch footage at the scene
of an accident, this particular cam relies purely no WiFi to connect
to your phone. By way of the Thinkware app (iOS and Android) you can
both get a live view of what the camera sees, and also download and
view clips direct from the SD card. Here you can also set parameters
of record mode, too; such as continuous and time-lapse for when
you're parked.
The lack of a screen is
not something to lament at all, because as well as being less
distracting to the driver, it also allows the Thinkware Dash Cam F770
to be a fairly unique shape. When you first pull it from the box it
seems like a great lump of black plastic and not much of a cam at
all. However, the camera lens itself can be adjusted to point at the
correct angle, while the entire rest of the device is affixed to the
widescreen via a 3M sticky plate. So yes, no dangling arm to attach
the camera too, and a far better fit to any shape of windscreen.
The Thinkware Dash Cam
F770 does also feature very clever software based things like lane
departure warnings, and speed camera alerts, but we were a little
preoccupied by the camera itself. Yes, such other things are useful
(although speed camera warnings will always be controversial), but
when it boils down it all depends on the image quality. The F770 can
clearly pick out a number plate from a pretty impressive distance,
and when viewed either on your phone or downloaded to you PC or Mac,
footage can be further enhanced for whatever purpose you need.
Small, compact,
convenient and universally useful, this is a stellar dash cam indeed.
£199.99 (£249.99 for
pair option)