Hands on A118C the capacitor version of A118

[Mtz]

I made a small video about A118C which I received from GearBest where is sold as Viofo A118C:

For me the biggest question was what is the start recording delay time of the dashcam because I have some korean cameras with the starting time of about 30 seconds and more. The advertised starting time of A118C is about 8 seconds but I obtained 12 seconds because I measured the time when the dashcam is starting recording. Maybe the 8 seconds startup timing was in some previous firmware or it refers when the camera is showing the boot "Welcome" image. I have installed the firmware from 8 January 2015.
I don't consider these 12 seconds to be a big problem for me because I am not moving my car very fast after I started the engine.
The battery version of A118 have start-up recording time for about 3 seconds.
Here is a picture from camera inside, you can see the capacitors.


enjoy,
Mtz

 

[Gibson99]

Just received mine today as well. I tried pointing the phone at a stopwatch (on my phone) and booting it up... it seems it's about 8 seconds before the camera's screen turns on, but the time reading at the start of the video was about 12 seconds. not bad at all, really. I'm usually still buckling my seat belt, adjusting the heat/ac and picking a song on my phone before i even release the parking brake, so this isn't really an issue for me. my wife's korean-made, capacitor-based Blacksys CF-100 also has a cold boot time of about 15 seconds, though I haven't timed it to be exact.

I intend to do a full review, comparing the a118, a118c, and CF-100 side by side. Just for grins, I may include the old F70 to see just how bad it really is. the A118 (both versions) can step down to 720p and even regular vga, and the F70 claims to do 720p but looks pretty lousy at 720p so I just use VGA. should be interesting to see how proper optics on the a118 can probably make even VGA mode look good.

 

[Mtz]

There is a new firmware for A118C which should add some delay at shutdown. Test and report.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[Gibson99]

There is a new firmware for A118C which should add some delay at shutdown. Test and report.

enjoy,
Mtz

InTeReStInG. Just curious, where'd you find it? any other changes other than shutdown delay?

 

[Mtz]

Billknow from foxoffer also posted today this firmware somewhere on our forum.

enjoy,
Mtz