BLOGGER TECHNOLOGY: PHILIPS ADR810 DASH CAM
Over the past few months I’ve been having quite a bit of fun playing with new technology. As Gav has been an IBMer for around two decades now, it’s usually him who plays around with technology but this time it’s been what I’ve termed “blogger” technology – and although I’m never that clever in figuring out how to read the instructions [I blame too much reading through law school, I’m done with intelligent texts and need the simple stuff now] I’ve been having a play once they’ve been set up [by Gav].
So we’ve owned the Philips ADR 810 Dash-Cam for about 2 and a half months now. To see the kind of footage it collects, you can see the driving bits on our film below – especially in the first few seconds. It’s been brilliant and is exactly what we need when we visit attractions. The reason for this is that most of the signs to welcome you to different places are on the driveway to the actual location, where it’s impossible to hop out for a photograph of and it terrifies me to hang my camera out of the window to capture as we drive in. So this is a dream come true. Please note that although this is a safety camera, I’m using it primarily from the point of view of a blogger on holidays and daytrips.
Overall, if I’d seen this in action, I’d definitely want it and have added it to my list of blogging day trip travel must haves – it’s a brilliant price for the picture quality and I love that I can now record the trips to and from places without any effort. I weighed up what I love and what I wish about the Philips ADR810 below.
…that the ADR810 is small, light weight and easy to store.
…the picture quality is brilliant in dark conditions and far surpasses what I was expecting.
…that now I don’t have to risk my limbs or camera to capture footage of us arriving at a venue.
…there was a battery. As isn’t, it doesn’t record when there is no power to it [from the ignition]. Therefore when I broke down and my car couldn’t turn over, from the point of view of what the camera is actually intended for, I couldn’t have recorded any incident that might have taken place.
…it included a lens cover, which I would have liked very much.
…there was some way of knowing [perhaps there is and I’ve missed it] when the memory card has been filled. It continually records on a loop – there is no signal given that the memory card has been filled, and so once full, it simply starts over. This meant that my footage of us arriving at and driving onto the ferry in Southampton was recorded over by the time we had reached our destination and I had no idea. This lead to a small meltdown.
…that there was a sucker attachment instead of the sticky pad mount – it feels very cheap and as we fixed it to our old car [which is now on its way to the scrapyard], I have no way of fixing the mount to my new car windscreen without a new sticky pad and a great deal of effort to get the old one off in a non-messy fashion.
More technology coming soon! If you have anything you’d recommend for travel blogging and daytrips, drop us a line!
