Traxion
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- Oct 6, 2021
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- Location
- Southeast, USA
- Car(s)
- 2022 Toyota Supra 3.0 Premium
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- #1
@Redtiger posted up a contest and I won! In exchange for the free dashcam prize, one of the requirements was to post a review. Feel free to take this review as shilling or not but I'm pretty picky about my tech. I'll mainly be comparing this to the Viofo A129 Duo, of which I have installed in 3 vehicles. I've used that one in my Supra for daily driving, pulling my autocross run recordings, and some track recordings so I'm pretty familiar with what I do/don't like about it. The contest provided a good opportunity for a nicer camera at no cost to me to see if I want to upgrade my other vehicles.
Here's a video breakdown and review with some text highlights of the main things below.
Value:
MSRP at $370, no way. On sale, 100% a good choice. It's currently at a historical low price of $220 on Amazon or direct from their site. My Viofo A129 Duo (1080P Front + Rear) was $130 on sale when I first got it in 2021. That model is discontinued and has been replaced by the A229 Plus (1440P F + 1440P R) at $200, and the A229 Pro (4K F + 2K R) at $300 so the most comparable device would be the A229 Pro which is $80 more than the F17 Elite.
What's In the Box:
You guys are smart, you know what's supposed to come with a dashcam so I'll talk about the good and the bad of what's included. It came with a 128GB SD card and a trim pry tool to help run wires, I don't think most camera's come with them. The 12V Cigarette lighter power source that came with it did not work in my X5. The positioning of the side metal contacts are too high. The F17 Elite does use USB C for power so I was able to grab a spare cable from around the house and plug it into the vehicles USB port instead.
Dashcam Menu and Voice Control:
The F17 Elite menu is how I expect a menu to run in terms of options, speed, and response. The A129 has pissed me off more times than I can imagine. The menu and buttons are terrible. It reminds me of trying to change settings on a monitor where you have three buttons: left, right, and ok. And you have to use left and right to also move up and down, and hit Ok to both enter and exit each setting. I have to turn off and on daylight savings time settings so each time I have to do that, I get extremely annoyed and then multiply that across my 3 vehicles. The menu on the F17 Elite is a highly responsive touch screen and also has optional buttons on the bottom. The only thing worse than terrible buttons would be to have a laggy and non-responsive touch screen and Redtiger is extremely quick. You can see a full menu walkthrough in the video. The voice control was also very responsive, I didn't think I'd care about this feature but it seems like it might be useful if I can remember to use it.
The only feature I currently desire in the menu is to be able to flip and mirror each camera individually. The front camera obviously has no reason to be flipped, but the rear camera may need to be flipped depending on which side you want the USB port to be oriented. Doing so means the image is also mirrored, but if you select to mirror it to set it correctly, then it also mirrors the front camera.
Wifi Download:
The biggest thing I was looking forward to. I want to be able to grab my videos when I want and do so quickly. I wanted to put this in my commuter vehicle first and if I was happy with it, then maybe grab one for the Supra because I want to be able to grab stuff quickly and send it to my phone at track and autocross events. The A129 was so slow that it was almost a requirement to keep a card reader on hand so I could pull the video off it. The few times I tried pulling video off it via wifi, it would stop part way through because it lost signal and then I'd have to start all over again and pray it'd make it all the way through. I also could not stream the video clips to see if I had the right one selected because the wifi and buffering was so slow. With the F17 Elite on the other hand, I downloaded a 1GB front video clip in 45 seconds and a rear 560MB clip in 24 seconds. This can be seen on my youtube review.
Conclusion:
The only thing left to be seen is how reliable the dashcam is and that comes with time. The A129 has been solid for 4+ years with a couple minor quirks about it not liking being jostled and stopping recording. That has really only been an issue when under high G's in the Supra or running over bumpy parts of the track. It was able to handle 100+*F days and Redtiger needs to be able to handle the same, so I'll be keeping an eye on that.
If you only need a dashcam that will provide you proof something isn't your fault, this isn't for you. There's much cheaper alternatives that are adequate. If you want to go beyond adequate or you like spending a little extra to get nicer features and better quality of life, then this is a great option for you. If anything, it's worth entering in their contests and checking out for yourself.
Here's a video breakdown and review with some text highlights of the main things below.
Value:
MSRP at $370, no way. On sale, 100% a good choice. It's currently at a historical low price of $220 on Amazon or direct from their site. My Viofo A129 Duo (1080P Front + Rear) was $130 on sale when I first got it in 2021. That model is discontinued and has been replaced by the A229 Plus (1440P F + 1440P R) at $200, and the A229 Pro (4K F + 2K R) at $300 so the most comparable device would be the A229 Pro which is $80 more than the F17 Elite.
What's In the Box:
You guys are smart, you know what's supposed to come with a dashcam so I'll talk about the good and the bad of what's included. It came with a 128GB SD card and a trim pry tool to help run wires, I don't think most camera's come with them. The 12V Cigarette lighter power source that came with it did not work in my X5. The positioning of the side metal contacts are too high. The F17 Elite does use USB C for power so I was able to grab a spare cable from around the house and plug it into the vehicles USB port instead.
Dashcam Menu and Voice Control:
The F17 Elite menu is how I expect a menu to run in terms of options, speed, and response. The A129 has pissed me off more times than I can imagine. The menu and buttons are terrible. It reminds me of trying to change settings on a monitor where you have three buttons: left, right, and ok. And you have to use left and right to also move up and down, and hit Ok to both enter and exit each setting. I have to turn off and on daylight savings time settings so each time I have to do that, I get extremely annoyed and then multiply that across my 3 vehicles. The menu on the F17 Elite is a highly responsive touch screen and also has optional buttons on the bottom. The only thing worse than terrible buttons would be to have a laggy and non-responsive touch screen and Redtiger is extremely quick. You can see a full menu walkthrough in the video. The voice control was also very responsive, I didn't think I'd care about this feature but it seems like it might be useful if I can remember to use it.
The only feature I currently desire in the menu is to be able to flip and mirror each camera individually. The front camera obviously has no reason to be flipped, but the rear camera may need to be flipped depending on which side you want the USB port to be oriented. Doing so means the image is also mirrored, but if you select to mirror it to set it correctly, then it also mirrors the front camera.
Wifi Download:
The biggest thing I was looking forward to. I want to be able to grab my videos when I want and do so quickly. I wanted to put this in my commuter vehicle first and if I was happy with it, then maybe grab one for the Supra because I want to be able to grab stuff quickly and send it to my phone at track and autocross events. The A129 was so slow that it was almost a requirement to keep a card reader on hand so I could pull the video off it. The few times I tried pulling video off it via wifi, it would stop part way through because it lost signal and then I'd have to start all over again and pray it'd make it all the way through. I also could not stream the video clips to see if I had the right one selected because the wifi and buffering was so slow. With the F17 Elite on the other hand, I downloaded a 1GB front video clip in 45 seconds and a rear 560MB clip in 24 seconds. This can be seen on my youtube review.
Conclusion:
The only thing left to be seen is how reliable the dashcam is and that comes with time. The A129 has been solid for 4+ years with a couple minor quirks about it not liking being jostled and stopping recording. That has really only been an issue when under high G's in the Supra or running over bumpy parts of the track. It was able to handle 100+*F days and Redtiger needs to be able to handle the same, so I'll be keeping an eye on that.
If you only need a dashcam that will provide you proof something isn't your fault, this isn't for you. There's much cheaper alternatives that are adequate. If you want to go beyond adequate or you like spending a little extra to get nicer features and better quality of life, then this is a great option for you. If anything, it's worth entering in their contests and checking out for yourself.
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