Vacron VVA-CBE05A All In One 1080p HD Dash Cam with 3-Inch TFT LCD Display, Lane Departure Warning System and GPS

Had this dashcam for over 8 years now, and it's still working like the day I bought it. I purchased this, after doing a bit of research, after getting in a car accident, and got blamed for running a red light, which ironically enough, the witness (who favored the other driver), was stuck at that red light. As one who used to drive over 65+ miles a day, I've had a far share of close calls and road rage during my morning commute. Which I've pulled footage, review footage from device, plenty of times without issues. I thought this unit would eventually burn out from the high heat in the car, during the summer time, but it's never once failed, and the quality of the camera is pretty top notch. My ONLY complaint about this dash cam, is I wish it had a rear camera as well. :)

I'll start off with the positives. It has a decent camera. The field of view is about the same as looking straight ahead with glasses on. I can make out license plates reasonably well. It can see clearly in day and it does ok at night. It is mostly self evident what all the settings do without reading the manual. The power cord is long enough to run from beside the driver's seat in my Mustang, under the dash, to the side of the door, and along the edge of the windshield to under the rear view mirror--staying out of sight. With the screen shut, It doesn't draw a lot of attention to itself from the outside. The accelerometers are sensitive enough to detect bumps in the road or a door opening. The GPS works well with the Google map software on PC. The manual was written by someone who had English as a second language, but I'd say it is good enough for the most part. I've certainly seen worse.Now the negatives: It freezes up. I have had it for two months. At first I thought it might be the temperature. It has been between 40 and 95 degrees out. It has an upper limit of 120 degrees, (although I suppose it is in direct sunlight most of the time I need it, so there's that.) but it freezes up at any temperature, and it seems to be getting less reliable as I use it. It can be easily recovered from this condition by unplugging it and plugging it back in, but doing so will reset all the settings to their defaults including the time. For this reason, I haven't bothered with the lane warning feature since it needs to be trained. (I don't really care about that feature anyway.) While setting the device isn't hard, going through the options definitely isn't easy enough to do it while driving and the remote can be a little frustrating. At least it works in video mode straight away without pressing any buttons or setting the time. But a lot can happen in the 20 seconds or so it takes for it to come on. The software for the PC is easy enough to use, and it gets the job done, but it needs to look more like a professional Windows app for my tastes.Everything about it makes it seem it was meant to be on all the time. However, since it keeps freezing for no apparent reason, I can't seem to count on it recording the whole trip or keeping watch over my car when I leave it parked. I want to give it a better review, since it has some nice features. But it doesn't keep them on the whole time.

buycarcamers customer service 5starI give it a four only(changed rating to three, see below) because it started malfunctioning several hours after installing. Like any other electronics in my experience, it will show signs of a problem in the beginning or last forever. I do like the unit and it's functions. May seem a little pricy but the time spend in court and time off from work for someone making false claims puts it at a insurance drop in the bucket for me.Personally I thought it was the power supply not the unit.But I emailed buycarcamers customer service there was no hesitation in getting back to me and immediately replacing the unit.I would recommend them they get a 5 star.February 2014I had occasion to avail footage to a police dept for an accident.The software, in my view, leaves a lot to be desired.First I can not figure out how to load the software on to the computer so you do not need the disc.Second the files are not in a format that can not be loaded on a disc and viewed on any computer, they have to be converted with a third party software that I had a problem finding, and all info, (speed - time - etc.)is lost, on the conversion. Its not a direct copy, what I was able to do was make a streaming copy only.Third the viewable on your computer is not able to be made larger or full screen.

Updating to a three star review. When purchased, had a few duds that had to get sent back because they wouldn't turn on. But long term use (four years) of two units has been fairly good. The only exception to the overall good experience is the lack of ANY support. These were advertised as being able to update with new firmware. Well... we've never been able to do that. The manufacturer's site doesn't have any support options, is full of broken links, and has this model buried under sub models. We have two devices, each with different firmware revisions and have never been able to update them. Period.Overall... decent product that outlasted our expectations with decent video quality. But having no manufacturer support is the kicker.