Purchased the Anker Roav Dash Cam C2 from Amazon for $54.11 (normally $79.99 but had a promo code for $30 off and free shipping).
Ordering was simple enough. C'mon. It's Amazon. Shipping was fairly quick...like one-day shipping quick.
As always, Anker packaging is minimal. A palish tan box with the product inside wrapped in a plastic bag and a very small leaflet help manual.
Set up was fairly easy. It didn't come with a memory card (micro SD is needed). I didn't run the power cord from windshield just behind the rear view mirror. I just wrapped it once or twice around the neck of the rear view mirror and let it dangle down to my 12-volt socket.
What's nice about the Roav power cord is it's not tethered directly to a 12-volt plug. Instead it's a USB so it can plug into ANY power source that accepts USB. This is nice as I have a three USB 12-volt adapter so I can use the Roav, charge my phone with a USB-C cord and have a spare port to charge something else.
Video quality is pretty darn good.
- Daytime recording allows easy viewing of some pretty decent details.
- Nighttime viewing is decent enough but some details like legible license plate numbers may occasionally be lacking.
Sound quality is okay.
- From inside the car, voices and music are picked up but occasionally inaudible which is to be expected. Audio is not what I was looking for in a dash cam anyway.
- From outside the car, sound can be barely heard in some instances, mainly with windows open, but again not a necessity for me.
Recording has loop, parking and emergency settings.
- Loop has 5, 10 and 15 minute videos (I think) and, as standard, once full the newest will record over the oldest.
- Parking puts the camera in like a standby mode that will activate recording for thirty seconds when impact or 'hard' movement of the vehicle is detected while the camera is not being directly powered from a vehicle being on. I believe there are two sensitivity settings to the parking mode.
- Emergency recording detects 'severe' impact, records thirty seconds and locks it from being deleted by the loop recording.
Operating the camera is fairly straight forward. There are tactile buttons on the back of the camera on the right-hand side which allow navigation of the camera functions menu.
The camera mounts via a suction cup. The suction cup performs fairly well unless it gets hot within the vehicle. On warmer days, I've left my vehicle and the camera is on the windshield but when I return some twenty minutes or longer later, the camera is dangling from the rear view mirror since I have the power cord wrapped there. This isn't a huge deal unless there was some impact while the vehicle was parked and the camera records my dashboard or floorboard.
Overall I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase. For the price I paid, the quality of the recording and the ease of operation, I thought about purchasing another one for my other vehicle. However, I haven't seen as good of a deal as I found the first time around. Even at $79.99, one would be hard pressed to find a better product overall.
