Blackvue Dashcams - who has them and what's your opinion, good and bad

[Phippy]

Looking to get a dashcam fitted to my E86 and wondered if anyone had experience with the Blackvue DR900X 2 channel.

How good is the parking mode? (One of the main reasons i'm buying it)
Does it fill up the memory quick (appreciate that all depends on what size memory card so for argument sakes assume i will get a 128mb)
Do you have it linked to car battery or separate battery pack? Which is better?
How good is the image quality day and night? specifically reading licence plates.
Were you able to fit and hide all the cables to the front and rear camera?
Does the rear camera fit in the rear window or is the angle too extreme?
How do you find the field of view?

Are there any alternatives you think are better? Was otherwise looking at the Thinkware U1000, but heard the image quality wasn't so good and the app was very clunky/not as user friendly as Blackvue's

thanks in advance!
Phippy

 

[veryverydarkblue]

I will be watching this thread with interest after having similar thoughts and seeing the deals currently available at Halfords. I was eyeing up the 750x 1 channel for my roadster primarily for its slightly smaller size and presumably lower power consumption.

I street park in London, but only use my car once a week at most, so looking for an extended use parking mode that doesn’t completely kill the battery

 

[dhobbs]

I have a blackvue dual camera in my other car.
My first point is that it can eat through memory cards. My latest micro sd card occasionally says 'corrupted' then after a reboot recovers.

Installation was easy except the rear camera, but that depend on the car you're during it to.

On the z4 I have a mini 0906 (I think) and that's been great and much cheaper than the blackvue.
I stuck the rear camera to the wind deflector so it works with the roof up or down.

 

[Phippy]

Thanks dhobbs, how often do you review/delete unneeded footage?

Also how do you find the image quality / parking mode on the mini 0906?

 

[dhobbs]

To be honest I don’t review it that often, not unless there is some damage, fingers crossed I've never needed to.
I'm not sure if the mini 0906 has a parking mode but i sometimes leave it permanently on if I park on the public road.

You can get an additional black box to provide monitored power and you can set it to switch off at a particular voltage so as not to drain the battery. It needs to be wired in to a permanent and a switched live though.

Quality wise it's not so bad, would need to dig out the specs.

I've used this site to see what's available.
https://dashboardcamerareviews.com

 

[Old-Duckman]

https://www.youtube.com/user/CarCamCentral/videos

I found this guy's videos very helpful when researching dash cams. Looks like most are at least 8 months old now. Whatever you choose watch his video on the best SD card choices. I made the mistake of getting one that I thought was good. Ended up going with his top choice and it has been flawless.