B40D Car Video Camera Recorder w/ 1080P WDR G-Sensor Loop Recording 170 Degree Wide Angle - Dual Channel HD Dash Cam w/Rear View Camera & 16G Card [Capacitor Edition Upgraded from A118]

[UPDATE 6/30/16]Great news. I got a replacement camera today and it works perfectly. It powers up and shuts down without corrupting files. The capacitor in the new camera keeps the camera powered after shutting off the ignition, and the camera give the charming shutdown confirmation sound.The GPS setting also stays enabled in the new camera, PLUS the camera starts up fine with my hardwired USB adapter. So everything works great now.Support is also great. With the trouble I had with the defective camera during my 8000 mile road trip, I'm now satisfied with the new camera and their customer service. It's nice to work with businesses like this.So I'm happy to upgrade my review for the camera, and their support to 5-stars. I love the design and features of the camera and am glad it all works as expected. I'm a happy camper.[UPDATE 6/28/16]A quick update. I emailed support and they wrote back asking for a video of the problem. I sent it to him and I'm waiting to hear back.Here is the video: [...] (video link in comments)I'm still having the power off problem, but I did solve the power on problem. Apparently the camera doesn't like the hardwired usb power supply I had in my truck (i tried 2 purchased here on Amazon). The camera starts up just fine with the supplied power adapter 100% of the time. I was hoping a hardwired adapter would work, Hopefully I can one that does. But as least I can always bury the supplied adapter in the dash using a female socket to hardwire it in that way. That way I can have a clean truck without wires hanging all over the place.But I'm still waiting to hear back about the shut-off corrupt file problem. I think/hope it's a defective capacitor and can get a replacement unit. I'll follow up with him again now.[UPDATE 6/8/16]I've dropped my rating from 3 to 2 stars and do not recommend this camera. After 5 more days of using the camera on the road, I'm extremely frustrated with the camera not starting during engine start, and the corrupt files when I turn off the truck.I figured out that when I turn over the engine, the capacitor in the camera will die before the truck starts. Once the truck is running, the camera won't turn on unless I unplug it and plug it back in. For what it's worth, my truck starts in a normal 1/2 to 1 second on average.When I shut off the truck, the camera almost instantly shuts off, before the camera can close the file and corrupts the video rendering it unreadable. I've been using two different class 10 microSD cards (a 32GB Kingston and 32GB Samsung)The biggest problem is that this camera is that if I get in an accident, and my vehicle loses power or is turned off, the video file of my accident will be corrupt. This makes the camera useless.Do not buy this camera until ARECORD resolves it. (Maybe they can do something via firmware)This problem really ruins a great camera.[ORIGINAL REVIEW 6/3/16]I really like the camera, the resolution is great. License plates are very readable even at the widest part of the lens.I'm on an 8000 mile trip around the country, and I'm recording the whole trip.But I wanted to focus on some problems with the camera, hoping SADDLE LTD. responds to the issues since there is no known website for this brand of camera.1. The camera does not always turn on when I start my truck. 80% of the time it works fine. But 20% of the time it doesn't, and I have unplug it, and plug it back in, or restart the vehicle. This is a big problem because sometimes I don't notice, it won't record a potential important event. Not good. I haven't been able to replicate the exact cause causing it to not start. But I believe it's due to the timing of the camera's delayed boot, the amount of charge in the capacitor, and the timing of when I turn the ignition to start the engine. But this needs to be resolved somehow.2. Corrupt video files. When you turn off your vehicle, the camera should detect the power loss, finish writing the last bits of the video to close out the file, then shut off. However, when I open the video files during these moments, the video file is corrupt and unreadable. So it seems that the capacitor isn't keeping the camera powered long enough to do this. Since my camera was set to record 3 minute video files, I could lose video footage from up to 3 minutes before I shut off the vehicle. This seems like a capacitor capacity issue and might be related to my problem above.3. GPS. I bought the GPS dongle thingy which works fine, except there are two issues with the implementation in the firmware. One, the display only shows KPH, no setting in the menu to switch it to MPH. Two, the GPS setting in the menu does not stay "on," and defaults to "off" after each start. There pretty much renders the GPS option useless. There is no way I'm going to go deep into the menu to turn it on every time I start the car. But these GPS issues should be easily fixed in a firmware update.I'm 3000 miles into my 8000 trip, and these are the issues I've found so far. Otherwise the camera is great. The low profile is awesome and the quality is great. I wish there were more options with time-lapse. Since it's limited, I'm just doing the crazy thing and recording all 8000 miles at 1080p 30fps. But I'm mad that I have lost footage due to reasons 1 & 2 above... and a GPS adapter that's not reasonable to use due to a setting problem.I didn't know that a 64GB card worked with this camera until I saw some recent reviews here on Amazon. But a 32GB card records roughly 5 hours of video in 1080p/30fps. More specific, a 3 minute .mov file is 282MB.Hopefully there are solutions to the problems. Especially with the power related problems. That what worries be the most. Is this a design flaw? or is my camera defective? I don't know, but I hope there is a fix.

The screen is so dinky that you can barely make out the picture of what's being recorded. I was only able to set the proper time and date ONCE. after that it was impossible.I installed this as a temporary camera while I got ahold of a nicer higher quality camera, on a new vehicle I had purchased.It works, it records when you plug in the power. You can see the recordings on any computer you can use the micro SD card on.Too bad it just died out of the blue, no warning nothing. Luckily I wasn't in an accident when it did decide to die. Couldn't even tell it was dead. The screen was still on, the "recording" symbol was still on. Only reason I found out it died was because I decided to look at a cars license plate. Low and behold, no recording on the microSD card. Did the standard trouble shootings, changed the SD card, pushed some buttons and nothing.

The microphone picks up every sounds inside the vehicle. The video captured during the day is average at best. The video captured at night is very limited compared to other cameras. This camera cannot see from sidewalk to sidewalk at night. Rear camera at night It's there can't see much Very easy camera to install

So, when it did work, the quality was great, at least the video. The problem is, it almost never worked. Nearly every time it turned on, after 10sec it would freeze and I'd have to reboot and try again. After about 10 tries, it would work as long as I didn't try to push any buttons. One time the screen just flickered magenta, another it had weird borders, another I got the video with no interface around it, another I got interface with no video. It was so jacked it wasn't even consistent in what it did wrong.Also, the videos it did record, the audio was really borked. For every minute there was about 3 seconds of audio that was great, and then it cut out again.I returned it after one trip.