It’s important to have a dash cam installed on your car these days what with driving licenses being handed over to monkeys and road rage soaring to an unprecedented high. Having critical evidence of any untowardly incident is important to ensure that you have a water tight case in your favour if you decide to follow the course of law.
There are a whole bunch of dash cams available in the market as of now. Starting from the really cheap ones with poor recording quality and unreliable software, you also have some extremely expensive, high end dash cams which support infra red imaging. It’s important, though, that you choose a well made, decently priced camera from a reputable manufacturer – a unit that works well during both daytime and in the night, has a reliable software-hardware combo and doesn’t require you to rob a bank to own it.
The Asus Reco Classic cam is one such device which comes from a reputable manufacturer with a decent price tag. Does it work well too? We’ll try and find out in this review
Inside the box
The kit contents of the Asus Reco Classic cam comprise the following items
- Main camera unit
- A 12V power supply cable with a mini-USB jack
- A vacuum suction clamp for temporarily mounting the camera, along with a GPS sensor and cable
- An adhesive clamp for permanently mounting the camera
- Adhesive clips to route the long wire around the windscreen
- A quick start guide
- Warranty
Design and build
Dash cams are meant for rugged use. The fact that in most cases, these cameras are not permanently mounted on the screen of a vehicle (for the fear of theft) means that they have to be installed and removed frequently. A tough, yet lightweight build quality is important, and the Reco Classic does not disappoint.
The Reco Classic employs high quality, yet lightweight plastic construction for the main camera.
Up front you have Asus branding along with an F/2.0 aperture lens surrounded by a metallic finish bezel. Facing the cam, to the left side you have three slots stacked vertically. A mini-USB power inlet, an HDMI out and a GPS in via a mini-USB slot, again.
On the right side of the cam you have a slot for a Micro-SD card, meant for recording the video.
On the back panel, you have a 2.0 inch LCD screen with a set of 5 horizontally aligned buttons. This panels also houses an on/off LED light along with
On top you have the slot for the suction / adhesive clamp and at the bottom, you get Asus branding along with power input rating and Serial Number.
 Sure, it’s no cnc aluminium construction, the kind most premium cellphones these days boast, but the RECO Classic feels well built, and with its lightweight construction, shouldn’t sustain much damage even if you fail to mount it properly on that suction clamp and it falls off on the dashboard.
Features and performance
The Asus RE Cam supports full HD recording with HDR support and crisp night time recording thanks to its F/2.0 lens. It features a wide 140 degree viewing angle to cover a substantial part of the road ahead of your car’s windscreen.
Setting up the camera is simple, and you just have to connect the 12V power socket with the camera’s power inlet. The GPS antenna’s cable also needs to go in its respective slot. Mount the setup on the windscreen using the suction or adhesive unit and you are good to go.
The camera starts recording as soon as it detects motion through its sensors. The RECO Cam will record files of 5 minute each any of the following formats as specified by you. We are also providing you the length of video that can be captured on every recording type on a 64GB memory card.
– 1920×1080 30fps HDR ~ 11 hours of footage
– 1920×1080 30fps ~ 12 hours of footage
– 1280×720 60fps ~ 17 hours of footage
– 1280×720 30fps ~ 26 hours of footage
As goes without saying, the HDR mode provides best exposure compensation, though the 720p mode at 60fps is also an excellent mode for good quality video owing to higher frame rate.
The camera will stop recording when as the car stops, though you can still keep recording using the ‘Parking Mode’. Please note that there is no battery backup on the RECO Cam and it stops recording as soon as the ignition is turned off. You can relay the power via a battery pack, if you wish to record when the car is turned off.
Other than recording while you drive, you can also record while the car is stationary (parking mode). However, you would need a separate power source or else the RECO will shut down once you turn off the car. Most car workshops would plug a power bank which in turn connects to the car battery so that the power bank will power up the dashcam when the car engine is turned off. When you start the car, the car battery will recharge the power bank.
There is another Mod called ‘Monitor Mode’ which takes records just 1 frame per second when it doesn’t see any change in the scene of detect any motion and starts recording at normal fps once it detects motion.
The RECO Cam also comes with a feature to ‘emergency record’ footage in case it detects a collision. The auto-saved video will be saved in a separate location on the card and will not be overwritten. This feature can also be manually activated by pressing the button on the back panel – this is a good mode to put in use when you sense trouble and want to record an activity.
The overall quality of the recording is pretty crisp, both in the daytime and during the night. Check out the sample videos below
Daytime
Night-time
Other important features
In addition to the features mentioned above, the RECO Cam also gets a G-Sensor or a 3-axis accelerometer to detect sudden changes in the vehicle’s longitudinal or transverse velocity.
The Camera also gets two in-built features which are usually available only in high-end luxury cars – LDWS (Lane Departure Warning System) and FCWS (Forward Collision Warning System).
At speeds above 60km/h, LDWS is capable of providing the driver onscreen warnings and audio alerts if the vehicle veers outside road lane markings. The Forward Collision Warning System (FCWS) alerts the driver is detects that the car is getting too close to the vehicle ahead at speeds above 60 km/h.
In select territories, the GPS sensor on the system can also notify you of nearby speed cameras, and reminds you to maintain a safe driving speed.
Verdict
Sure there are many cheaper unbranded phones on the market claiming matching specs, and they might make sense for those who are looking at the cheapest deal possible. As is the case with any product, though, there has to be a nice balance between price, performance, quality and features. The Asus RECO Classic is well built, and does what it’s meant to flawlessly. With this one, you won’t get any surprise moments comprising missing files, blurry video or the hardware not working at a critical juncture.
While we approve of the ASUS RECO Classic dash cam, the only mentionable flaw we could find is the absence of a battery. At Rs 13,000 it’s slightly steeper than a few other options on the market, but you won’t find a dash-cam from a globally reputable brand for less. It’s built well, is packed with features and works the way it’s meant to every single time. Do consider this one while making a buy
Price : INR 13,000 / USD 200
Technical Specifications
Main Chip : Ambarella
Aperture : F2.0
Features
- 140° viewing angle
- HDR(High Dynamic Range)
- G-Sensor(3-axis accelerometer)
- LDWS(Lane Departure Warning System)
- FCWS(Forward Collision Warning System)
Display : 2.0 ” LCD
Storage : Micro SD SDxC,class 10(8G~64G)
Resolution : Full HD 1080P (1920×1080) / HD 720P (1280×720)
File format：MOV (AVC/ H.264)
File length：5 min/ per file
GPS : External GPS sensor
Power : Car Charger (four meters)
Temperature : Operating : 0 ℃ to 60 ℃ / Storage : -20 ℃ to 70 ℃
Package Contents
- Car Camcorder
- Car Charger
- 3M Adhesive Mount Holder
- GPS mount holder
- Quick Start Guide
- Self-adhesive cable clips
- Warranty
Original Source : Gizmoids