A couple of weeks ago I told you about the Asus Reco Classic Car Cam which we were sent to review. Since then we’ve been on a few long road trips which have given us the perfect opportunity to really try it out. My husband drives a lot. He loves his car and always has the latest tech so he has kindly helped me review the Asus Car Cam and share his thoughts.
There are lots of different car dashboard cams around and at £99.99 the Asus Reco Classic Car Cam is one of the more expensive. However, the quality of the recording is excellent which is surely the most important point of a dashboard cam. They are becoming increasingly popular to give drivers peace of mind in the event of a car accident or claim against them.
First of all the Asus Reco Classic Car Cam kit contained everything needed apart from a micro SD card. Fortunately my husband was able to order one for about £7 which arrived in a few days.
It was quite easy to set up the Car Cam although I have to be honest, the instructions weren’t that helpful. It is a forward facing single lens dash cam, mounted on the front windscreen. It comes with a mini USB cable with a 12v car socket which means it doesn’t need to be hard-wired in. The cable is long enough to plug into the cigarette lighter and allows you to position it around the passengers glove box, along the side of the front window screen and underneath the rear view mirror. It comes with clips to keep the cable securely in place.
Once in position you can see the Car Cam has a screen big enough to see what is being recorded and there are 5 buttons which allow you to operate it and change the settings if necessary. Installing it in place took a couple of minutes and then we were off and we found it was straight forward to use. My husband has been using it on his commute to work and we also used it over the weekend when we drove to Wiltshire and back for a family party.
My husband really liked the Car Cam. It has several great features including:
GPS sensor
HDR for clear video recording
full HD 1080p resolution
advanced driver aids
wide 140° viewing angles
We did have a couple of small issues with it. For a start it kept crashing and re-starting and we never figured out why this happened. The Car Cam makes lots of noises (it alerts you to speed cameras and if it thinks you are leaving your lane) but when we found these distracting we just muted them.
We found the lane departure warning wasn’t always accurate, sometimes it would alert us when we were changing lanes!
The Car Cam is supposed to turn itself off when the engine is off but ours kept recording. This was probably due to our Audi which continues to power the cigarette lighter even with the key removed. We had to switch off the car cam manually to stop it recording when stationary.
It would have been helpful if the mini USB cable it came with had a USB connector on the charger end so it would work with an existing car charger. We were unable to charge our phones on the journey because the Car Cam was plugged in and my husband often uses a Sat Nav app so likes to keep his phone charging when driving.
We don’t have a Windows computer so couldn’t use the software it came with, however it works with iMovie so we were able to download and watch our Car Cam recordings on our Macs.
Overall we really enjoyed using the Asus Car Cam and will continue to use it on longer journeys. I’ve tried it in my little Fiat Punto but to be honest, I only drive around the local area, usually taking the children to one of their many after school clubs or yet another weekend birthday party. It works fine in my car but I think my husband will be keeping it in his Audi. It definitely gives me peace of mind when he is using it and, as he uses his car so much and travels on far busier roads than I do, it makes sense for him to use it.
I’d love to hear what you think. Do you have a Car Dashboard Cam or would you consider using one?
Disclosure – We were sent the Asus Reco Classic Car Cam free of charge for the purposes of review and have been compensated for our time.
