I have said it before and will say it again everyone should have a dashcam,In fact they should be a standard in every car and car manufacturers should be lining up dashcam makers to have theirs installed but no. However insurance costs here are rediculous and even recently the AA say the cost has come down, I would love to see where they got that form.
Anyway rant over I am going to talk about the Garmin 65W dashcam which is small and compact and offers lots of features and for its size I was impressed and its capabilities and its also a solid piece too which would withstand a few drops should you be moving from vehicle to vehicle which I would do..
First up check out the unboxing video below
The build quality here is great to begin with and its a robust unit, On the front we have a small screen which is 2.0 inches which is the smallest screen we have tested but its clear and readable which is important and notifications are loud and visible,more on that later. On the righ side we have 4 circular buttons which are easy to navigate,even when not looking. On the display beside the sceen these buttons are indexed with power on/off/back which is the top one and then consecutively UP-DOWN and take shot with the bottom key,this autosaves to your SD card.
On the left we have just our power source which is via micro USB which is more current than some of the dashcams we have used which use the older version. On top we have our window mount which is manoverable via a ball joint,this is also removeable which is handy so it can be placed basically in any position that suits you best and in a simple manner. On the bottom you will find your mico sd slot,sd card slot,ours came with an 8GB card, and speaker.
On the front you will find the 180 degree lens and thats it so overall its a simple set up and simple to use piece of equipment which we will demo in the video below.
ALERTS.. These work well quite well infact and there is settings here to pick from to to either silence these alerts or trun them off altogehter, It would be best to leave these alerts on especailly with speed limits and detection points unless you know your travel diary well, See the images below about the type of alerts you get which are uselfull and could save you points on your licence.
Also note you will get alerts prior speed zones. You can also use the voice activation to take videos and photos which is excellent and saves you from distraction although you can use the bottom button as mentioned to save an image should you wish but you should get use to the idea of voice controls..
Video samples on the Garmin 65W Dashcam
Overall this is really a nice dashcam and for its size its got plenty on board to keep the driver in check and always that added safety or having videos backed up should an incident arise,these would be vital in case of an accident as you cant say the camera lies….
Key specs on board.
- 180-degree field of view captures more of the environment, including cross traffic
- High-quality 2.1 megapixel camera with 1080p video capture; works even in low-light conditions
- Forward collision and lane departure warnings plus alerts for nearby red light cameras and speed cameras
- Includes lifetime safety camera updates
- GPS-enabled with automatic incident detection (G-sensor) saves video footage on impact to show when and where events happened
- Voice command allows you to start/stop audio recording, take a still picture or start/stop the Travelapse video capture feature