Vantrue X4 UHD 4K 3840x2160P 30fps Dash Cam, 3" LCD 160° Wide Angle Car Camera with 24 Hrs Parking Mode, Motion Detection, Night Vision, Capacitor, Optional GPS, Support 256GB Max, Loop Recording

After hunting around for dash cams for a while online, I decided to try out this one based on its reviews. I've used several dash cams in the past, but all of them died out in only a couple of month's use.Out of the box this dash cam seems to be well built and has great day and night picture quality. The menu is also pretty intuitive and responsive. Thanks to its super-capacitor, it boots up pretty fast as well. One thing about installation is that my car (2016 Jeep Compass) does not have a fuse box under the steering wheel console. I looked through my car's owner's manual and online just in case, but it's definitely not there. This complicated the installation since I wanted the camera to power up and down with the car. I didn't want to manually turn it off and on whenever I used it, since I could forget to turn it off and possibly drain the car battery over a long weekend. I found the solution with an OBD adapter cable that Vantrue sells as well. Once I received the special cable and installed it, it seemed that everything worked perfectly. Except that for some reason the camera was not shutting down when I turned off the engine. I thought that maybe I was just not waiting long enough so I left it running one night and came back the next morning to find that the camera had been continuously recording. I looked through the manual and made sure that I had it configured correctly to auto-shut off. But since I was running late already, I decided to hold off on trying to figure it out and just manually power it up and down for now. I was fine with this temporary arrangement, however, about a week later the camera stopped working. The power button was not depressing, as if it was stuck in the down position. The power button does not take a lot of pressure to actuate, so I definitely was not mashing it down hard whenever I pressed on it. It was summer time, but the days were not too hot, hovering around the 80s, so I don't think it's because of the button melting or warping.This was very disappointing, since it seemed for a while there, that this camera could have been the perfect dash cam that I had been looking for. As a final note, the suction cup also fell off about a month later, even without the camera attached.Update 2/12/20- A Vantrue representative contacted me and after a couple months of wait, a replacement came. I have been using it for a bout a week now, so far so good. I'll run it for about 2 months and update this review if it's still good.Update 5/10/20- I have been testing the replacement camera for 3 months, and so far so good. The only lingering issue is with powering up/down automatically. It is still not consistently powering up and down with my car, although I think it is because I've been using an OBD charger cable that I purchased separately, so I will not take off a point for that. It works perfectly if I use the lighter port adapter that came with it.

The media could not be loaded.  Car Dash Cam 4K. The item came with two cables. One short for home plug and one for car plug. The item is fairly compact. Light and you will need to have some clearance in your windshield. About 5 to 6 inches from the top of the suction cup. It was easy to assemble. The tricky thing was the suction cup. I thought at first it was bad, but the trick was the suction have a tab on top which tells you where it starts, then twist the plastic housing where you insert the plug to the right and meet the tab of the suction cup. It took me time to put the date and time and plate number of my car(optional). In the settings you choose how long the video clips must be, from 1, 2 or 3 minutes long. One of the drawbacks I see when i play the videos are the dates reset to default when you turn off the car and dash cam goes off. One way to avoid is to have a backup power bank and avoid plug in it directly to car battery, it will drain your battery. The cam has a parking mode feature that will record when a sudden move or crash in your car. Use the power bank to use this feature. The pictures are amazing. You can see clearly both days and night in the videos. The dash cam is very good and I recommend it. I already own one dash cam and I use both to compare them. The quality on this one is better as it is 4K. I had to purchase a 256 gigs Card and this Samsung is the best. this is the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0887P21Z2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1As the videos take more memory and a 32 gigs will not be enough to store many videos if you use it often. The camera will automatically save the current video recording in case a sudden move or crash is detected and lock the video to avoid deleting them. If you need a great camera, that records great videos, this is an item to look at. I wish I had one when I had an accident when a car swerved in front of me and scratched my front bumper, then they claimed I ht them and caused them big injuries and a lawsuit came and it was a horrible experience as there are many individuals looking to sue anyone for financial gain. Avoid the police report They said, and You said, because insurance companies are looking not to pay at all and both parties are at fault. Avoid the hassles and use a dash cam. It will avoid everything and just show the police and insurance companies what really happened. For a small price, you save A LOT! The quality of the video was on 4K , I am not sure why it has not uploaded like so.