G1W-C Dash Cam Review

I bought the G1W-C Dash Cam from Ebay for use in Singapore. I needed a new in-car dash cam – my last dash cam purchase experience online saw me with a dud – the GS8000L which I suspect could be a poor imitation clone. In all honesty, the most important dash cam feature should be stability followed by image quality. You don’t want a dash cam that frequently crashes. That was the main problem for the GS8000L and I did try it with different firmwares, suspected it could be overheating and tried to mess around with the battery too but no success. I had enough and got rid of it. I bought it from AliExpress and the dispute function was pretty long but finally was fortunate enough to get a full refund. I think I should stick with Ebay purchase which comes with PayPal protection in future. A good dash cam is one that is completely ignored until s*** happens.

So back to online research for a good dash cam model and the G1W frequently come in tops. The G1W has the ability to capture 1080p video at 30fps, works decently in night time, and looked pretty straight forward to use. The G1W-C has the same camera specs as the G1W for a slightly higher price. The difference being that the -C model has a capacitor instead of a battery. A capacitor regulates the electric flow and holds charge, but does not store them. It will power up the capacitor but you can’t use it when power is cut off. The advantage here is that batteries have a tendency to overheat and function poorly – could be useful in Singapore where temperatures can get up pretty high. On the other hand, I also know of many people using battery-based dash cams without a problem.

While it is not the smallest dash cam model around, it can be mounted behind / near your rearview mirror to be less obtrusive. It comes with the usual feature set, loop recording, auto on/off, a G-sensor and in-built motion detection. The in-built motion detection here is meant more to lock a particular video capture to prevent any overwritten files. There’s no GPS – but I don’t think that’s a crucial feature anyway. Insurance claims hardly debate on where the accident occurs, there are other ways to provide that data – just use your camera phone to snap the surroundings.

Why use a dash cam?

A dash cam can save you a lot of hassle when it comes to insurance claims, accident reports etc. Especially in those instances where its a side collision and the other party argues that it is your fault. This is where a recording can help provide you the added proof required. The dash cam is used to show how a collision went down from your perspective and show that you were driving legally.

Been driving around with it for a couple of weeks now – and well, I’m pleased. The main reason I bought it is also the number of good reviews received on the internet. These range from the big websites such as Dash Cam Talk and Techmoan which rates that the G1W as an absolute bargain – a low-cost combination with good performance.

My only gripe: about once or twice, the camera did not start and I had to plug out and in the power cable. Auto stop and start cameras plugged into the 12-volt socket will sense when the car has been turned on, power up, and automatically start recording. When the car shuts off, it turns off as well. This is an essential feature is it ensures that you would actually use the camera consistently. However, I can’t really identify the cause of the problem on my G1W-C just yet. Otherwise, I find the G1W-C to be a decent little performer, affordable, easy to use and simple to set up.

I bought the G1W-C from Ebay – seller estore009. If you search around, this particular seller had been receiving consistently good reviews. Why the concern? There are a number of ‘fake’ G1W and G1W-Cs floating around. I guess these are pretty generic parts in China and there are slight differences in the internal chipsets and firmware used. So be careful on where you buy it from! One area of check would be the recorded filetype – it should be in *.mov wheras the fakes are recording in *.avi. The fakes tend to use the cheaper NT96620 or 96632 chipsets instead of NT96650.