Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsThis compact camera is reliable & produces excellent video quality
Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2019
First, a bit of disclosure. I work for a surveillance camera manufacturer, so I am very familiar with the image quality possible today, even though we don't make any mobile or dash cams. Second, I had purchased multiple dash cams before stumbling upon Vantrue on Amazon. I was admittedly buying inexpensive models, and found that many had extremely poor instructions for setup and use. Others were poor resolution or narrow field of view. Worst of all, most didn't last me more than a couple of months before they failed due to the hot California sun. I actually had an accident where another car side swept me, and the driver only admitted fault because he saw my camera. When I looked at the camera later, it turned out it had failed to record, so I was very lucky that the other person assumed it caught what had happened.
I decided to buy a quality camera to hopefully avoid those issues, and purchased an earlier Vantrue model (OnDash X3 1440P HD). I have used it daily since 2017; I've put 50,000 miles on my car in the past three years here in Los Angeles, so it does get a lot of use. The Vantrue I bought back then has had none of these problems. When I purchased a new car, I decided to transfer that older model to my wife's car, and purchase a new one for my own new vehicle.
The Vantrue OnDash N2 Pro is what I purchased a couple of weeks ago on Amazon. It arrived in a couple of days. The packaging was clean and bright, as the pictures I took in my office show; it felt like a quality product from the start. This again is not always the case; I ordered one online from a deals site that came in very flimsy, black on white low quality packaging. That one turned out to be not so great a camera.
Setup instructions for the N2 Pro are easy to follow (although in part that may be because I had used the earlier model) and with few English-language typos. Neither of these things should be considered a given!
As you can see from the comparison shot I took in my garage, both cameras are similar, compact size. The N2 Pro (on the right in the photo) is slightly smaller in overall dimensions. The screen area is smaller as well, but it is extremely vivid & clear. Thus I don't have a problem with viewing content, either live video or playing back a recorded file. Since it is quite small, it blends in when you look at the car from the outside. Unless you are specifically looking for it, you likely won't notice the camera, as it almost disappears with the black of the mirror and sensors near where I typically mount it, center windshield, up high.
I purchased the optional wiring harness, so that I could hook it up permanently. I do usually take a dash camera with me on trips, using the included 12 volt adapter and cable. Hooking it up via the wiring harness, though, lets me record any incidents that happen around the car when I'm not present. Vantrue indicates that it won't drain the vehicle battery in the documentation. Obviously, I haven't had a chance to validate that with the new model, but I believe it. I will be experimenting with the capabilities in this area. For example, I enjoyed the footage my previous Vantrue camera took going through a car wash.
The night vision capability is outstanding, recording imagery much better than I can see with my own eyes. This is not a given; I've purchased and disposed of dash cams that had virtually no night vision and were thus useless much of the time.
While I plan to primarily use it for recording the action ahead of me, this Vantrue model allows you to also record what is going on behind you in the rear seat of the car. The wide dynamic range all-lighting-conditions technology in the sensor also allows it to see out the rear window. This would be useful in the event you are rear-ended and need the evidence of what happened. I plan to experiment with that capability more as well, to see which mode I want to use it in.
My only issue is that I had to look up in the printed instructions how to switch between front-facing recording only and the default mode of both front & rear facing recording activated. That done, no problems. Everything else was quite intuitive to set up if you've ever used other dash cams, and certainly if you've every had another Vantrue.
The audio and video quality are excellent, and I've shown people on my team some of the recordings the camera produces. They were impressed with the quality, especially since we work for a surveillance camera manufacturer here in the US, and I think a couple of them probably have bought the same Vantrue model since then.
I am very happy that I chose this model, and again purchased a Vantrue from Amazon again.
