My Vantrue S1 Sonnet 1 Pro review thread

[Mtnears]

I too received a sample Vantrue Sonnet 1 Pro to review. If companies are mailing to someone like me for reviews they really must be sending them out wide and far I do appreciate the offer and am certainly up for posting my thoughts based on that generosity.

This is my second dashcam, so I'm not a long term user here. I waited a long time to get a dashcam as I was really wanting to see some improvements and once Viofo came out with the A139 Pro with the Starvis 2 sensor I went for it and have been happy with how that has been working for me in my 2022 Ram 3500. I have a 2CH setup with a rear facing camera.

I just installed the Vantrue into the same vehicle. I figured for my first look at it I wanted to have more of a side by side comparison. For this reason I did not install the rear facing camera as it will not be the long term location for this camera (I believe). Eventually I'll move it over to the Corvette which I've been wanting to get a camera for so this works out great. You can see how I have them setup in the picture below. My plan is to drive it like this for a while and I'll do some comparison of video between the two once I get some footage.

A couple of initial comments;

• Packaging was nicely done, seems to be quality in that as well as in the device itself. Didn't feel any cheaper or nicer than the Viofo, both seem to be very similar in class from initial viewing,
• I wasn't sure what to expect for the size of the unit based on the pictures. I was afraid it was going to be bigger but as you can see it compares well I think to the Viofo. I'm not necessarily a fan of displays on the units, but then again I haven't had one with a display but I purposely went for one that did not have a display as I don't feel I have a need for it in the vehicle. I have it set to turn off the display after 3 minutes. That said, size wise, with a display I don't hate it either.
• The app so far seems intuitive and responsive. I do like that when you're going into the settings it automatically stops the recording whereas on the Viofo it tells you that you need to do that before going to settings. The approach Vantrue takes of just stopping it for you seems like the right path.
• I also like that you can update the firware right from the app without having to transfer the file to the card. Very convenient. Although like Viofo, they two wipe out all your settings after a firmware update. That has since changed with Viofo, hopefully Vantrue will do the same (Maybe it was part of this update I just did, I haven't looked at the release notes).
• As mentioned I didn't install the rear camera. But I did look at the cable and was disappointed to see it is the thicker cable. Really liked the thin cable that shipped with the Viofo.

I'll update this thread after getting some driving impressions.... assuming my quick window stick job holds in this heat....I kind of rushed it and feel like I may have a camera on my dashboard later, we'll see.

 

[Mtnears]

I noticed today that the camera lens is quite a bit farther back from the windshield than my Viofo. I did some driving today and will at least get some snapshot comparison between the two, possibly some video grabs depending on my time.

 

[Mtnears]

Here's screen grabs while driving, full view and zoomed in to see how the license plate looks as I was passing this vehicle...and another while stopped at a light. These were pulled from the dashcams using the iPhone interface, so not copied directly off the camera SD cards to my computer (shouldn't impact things much). I pulled the videos up on my phone and screen captured them from the phone. For the zooms, I had the video paused and zoomed it in on my phone, then grabbed the screen capture.

Viofo resolution is set to 4k 2160P 30 FPS
Vantrue resolution is set to 2592x1944 30 FPS
HDR is enabled on both. No filters in front of either lens.

Vantrue seems to have richer colors, but definitely not as crisp as the Viofo. Also worth noting that the Viofo video files for the 3 minute long segment is roughly 3 times as big as the Vantrue. When I look at the image info on my iPhone for both videos downloaded to my phone the iPhone identifies the Viofo video as a 4K video, it does not identify the Vantrue video as 4k (see the images below). My iphone shows that the Viofo is saving the video in H.264 4k, whereas Vantrue is using HEVC but does not say 4k, not sure if that means anything. I thought I read that H.264 cannot support HDR content?

I haven't done any night time driving yet with these both in place, but with what I'm seeing so far...comparing the two devices I would give the video quality win to Viofo's Starvis 2 implementation.

Each of the photos below are Vantrue first, then Viofo.

 

[jonat]

I noticed that you used the "electrostatic sticker" - do you have that between the windshield and the cam mount's adhesive? I can't quite tell from the photo.

 

[Mtnears]

Yes I do. The inside of my windshield is tinted and I like to make sure I won’t damage my tint film when sticking these on the windshield.