Having had the new Thinkware F800 (Single front camera version) running side by side against a Goluk T1, T2 and T3 the F800 certainly seemed like a worthy contender for Goluk.
At Shield-IT, our main focus when supplying and installing vehicle Dash Cameras is the quality of the video footage.
Additional "nice to have" functions may be useful to individuals depending on application of the camera however, our number one priority is video recording quality followed by parking motion and G-shock detection, App functionality and speed of wifi footage download.
After all, isn't the reason for a dash camera to ensure you are protected from others and have access to high quality clear recordings?
The Goluk T1, T2 and T3 range are full 1080p and all three have an incredible bitrate recording of 12Mbps. This means, when recording to the memory cards, quality loss is minimal when compared to other dashcam's with a lower bitrate.
The new Thinkware has a bitrate recording of 10Mbps on its front camera, whilst this is higher than that of the Blackvue 650s (front camera 9Mbps, rear 5Mbps), its not as high as the Goluk range.
This means when there are lots of changes/movement in the video (i.e. when driving) there will be loss of quality that will result in blocky and blurred video.
This will also impair the ability to read number plates as clear as the Goluk camera's.
At the time of writing, the app appeared to crash a number of times and the cloud based viewing did not function however these will be relatively easy fixes for Thinkware. We were also unable to test the speed camera database functionality however should you require speed camera detection, we strongly recommend a separate application for this.
"Waze" is an app available for both Android and iPhone and this updates you with live incidents on the road along with live speed cameras and average speed camera hotspots.
Waze doesn't need to rely on constantly having to update the speed camera locations by downloading them from the internet and copying to the memory card. This is all done "realtime" and live, by your phones data connection with a minimal impact in data download.
Waze is ultimately a great satnav application and you can just open the app and let it alert you over your vehicle bluetooth/speaker connections so you never miss an alert.
We were impressed that other manufacturers are finally making their dash cams smaller and the F800's cylindrical body is the same thickness as the Goluk T1, T2 and T3 however a little taller also with a rectangular body that adheres to your car windscreen and is clearly visibly once installed.
Footage of Goluk and Thinkware were ran side by side and due to the lower bitrate of the Thinkware, it did suffer with blocky artefacts however when vehicles are close, number plates could be read.
We took snapshots of moving footage were compared. The Goluk has a wider FOV at 152 degrees whilst the Thinkware is 140 degrees. Due to this, we compared a single shot of the Goluk against 2 shots of the Thinkware so that the images were in line.
The Thinkware has a maximum capacity of 64GB whilst the Goluk T3 can accept 128GB and although the Goluk T1 officially supports up to 64GB it will accept 128GB making a Goluk front and rear configuration capable of 256GB resulting in weeks of footage.
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