Senwow Dash Cam Review – A sub £35 dash camera with 16GB MicroSD card

I have reviewed some superb dash cams over the past couple of years, in particular, the Nextbase models stand out, and the 512GW is the one I personally use. However, at over £130 it is not a small investment, and if like me you drive a car that is worth less than £1k it might seem counterproductive to spend over 10% of the value of your car on a camera.However, that does not mean you shouldn’t get a dash cam, they can save you a huge amount of stress when it comes to dealing with insurance claims, and they are something I think everyone should use.

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The Senwow Dash Cam is an option for those not wanting to spend a fortune on a camera. Priced at just £32.99 this is one of the cheaper options on the market, and just to make the deal sweeter, you don’t even need to buy a microSD card, as they include a 16GB Sandisk card.The specifications are basic but good for the price, you get:

• 1920×1080 at 30 fps with 140° wide angle lens
• 6 infrared LED lights and WDR (Wide Dynamic Range), automatically adjust exposure, provide more details at night. G-sensor automatically captures unexpected driving incidents.
• Loop recording, motion detection, parking monitor, timestamp, WDR, 3″ LCD screen display, help to guard your car both driving and parking, bring you a wonderful and safe driving experience.
• Automatically power on and off with the engine, stable 3M adhesive pad and suction mount for your convenient installation, never fall down from the windshield.

Build quality and set-up

The overall look and build quality of the camera and mount are adequate, it is a bit plasticy and cheap looking, but it is small, with a decent size screen.The power supply cable is all in one so you can’t plug other devices into the lighter socket at the same time. However, because the camera uses microUSB you can just buy a dual USB adaptor and then run a long USB cable to it.The mount uses a suction cup to attach to your windscreen but there is also some 3M sticky pad if you want a permanent attachment, as well as some handy sticky cable organisers. This is more than I got with the Nextbase or other expensive modelsNavigating the menu is quite simple, there are not a lot of settings but not a lot is needed for a basic camera. You can set the date, the recording loop length, as well as switch on or off things like the g-sensor and parking sensor.There is no app to easily access your recordings and certainly no Wi-Fi, it records things the same way as a normal camera does, so the files are stored in the DCIM folder. You plug the camera into your computer and it will ace as mass storage, or pop out the card and read from that.

Performance

Video quality is average but adequate. It can’t compete with the 1440p footage of the 512GW and the footage appears a lot darker. The LEDs do provide a bit of glare when using it in the dark too. Overall though, it does what it is supposed to, you can clearly see what is going on around you, the wide angle lens covers you well from the sides. Number plates are not very readable from middle distance but perfectly readable up close which will be the case if you are in an accident. The time and date stamp give you some useful identifying information in the event of an incident, speed and GPS data is nice on other models but rarely essential.

Overall

It is hard to fault this dash cam when it is so cheap. It is a long way off the best I have reviewed, but it doesn’t need to be. If you just need something cheap to help cover you in the unfortunate case of an accident then this will likely provide all the evidence you need at a fraction of the cost.If I was driving a brand new £20k+ car, I would definitely spend more on a camera, but for the rest of us, something like this is a perfectly functional dash cam.

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