Hungry Geeks promotes safety in the road, we have tested several dashcams in our blog to see which one is a great travel companion to keep safe your driving journey. We’re back again with Zumi with their latest dashcam, the Ultra Solo A12 which has GPS and 2k resolution recording. We have around a month of experience with the Zumi Ultra Solo A12 and here is our review.
Design and build
Okay the white elephant scare for previous dashcam owners is can it withstand sunlight heat? We can honestly say yes, the body is made of a matte metal frame that is solid with a layer of plastic for the buttons and cradle.
3 Navigation buttons are located at the right with simple menu, up and down functions. We didn’t encounter any hard to understand menu inside the unit so thank goodness for that, overall the menu is easy, less cluttery and short.
At the bottom are the two left and right microphone for better audio output and the MicroSD slot for the memory storage.
At the top is the old but reliable mini-usb for power, mini-HDMI for display output and 2.5mm audio jack for the GPS module along with the power button which acts as a shutter button at the same time.
The 170 degree wide angle lens can record videos up to Quad HD 2,560 x 1,440p resolution, or technically can be called 2k resolution. What’s good with a bigger resolution video is it can capture more detail, but with the consequence of darker video due to more pixels needs more light.
The Ultra Solo A12 comes with an independent GPS module that you attach to the main unit, it helps track your speed, positioning, and a more detailed reporting. It can even help with software based anti-collision and lane departure warning features, but we don’t recommend using them as the alarm is very annoying and too jittery.
It has a small battery inside that keeps on recording even while unplugged, it’s good for 30 seconds for those moments that you need to pull out the unit and record something. One thing is safe here is that sudden pull out of the cord won’t destroy your recroding.
Video Sample
Here is the video sample of the Zumi Ultra Solo A12, as you can see that details at night is fairly good even at the 2k resolution. Car vibration like from low gear throttle or diesel engines can affect visuals making your video blurry, so make sure to check that.
It can record the front of your vehicle from a 170 degree perspective, meaning it can see the sidewalk from the left to right when you are at the center of a 2-3 lane the road.
But despite the 2k resolution video, the output is still bright on a standard tinted vehicle. You can also see the speed indicator at the lower right along with the standard time stamp. Audio quality is fair, more for vocals rather than bass which is needed for dashcams.
The Zumi Ultra Solo A12 comes with an 8GB MicroSD to immediately store videos, this is good for 50 photos and 8 five-minutes video (40mins total) of 2k resolution recording.
Photo Sample
Pressing the power button takes a snapshot of the video, saving a 2500×1600 resolution photo. Quality is decent with soft pixels when zoomed, it’s technically bad when you are moving fast as details are blurry. But it’s a good practice to snapshot violators in front of you for reference.
Zumi Ultra Solo A12 Photo Sample
We wished that timestamp is also present in capturing photos to make it easier when the time comes to submit evidence.
Conclusion
Priced at Php8,000 the Zumi Ultra Solo A12 is considerably a solid performing dashcam, it also has GPS for a better understanding of what might happen in the future. Though for its priced head to head against other GPS enabled dashcams without the 2K resolution capturing, so you might want to ask yourself it you need the 2K resolution capturing.
You can buy the Zumi dashcam here : Via Facebook or Lazada
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