Download File Firmware and Flashtool plus Video Tutorial compressed:
do not forget there are some additional tips from me:
How To Flashing celkon a119 hd
hey andrew with car cam central i think the $100 viofo a119 is the best value dash camera on the market right now it has the features most drivers are lookingfor a good price and viofo has a good track record of delivering quality products
so let’s get into (pause for dramatic effect) the details [intro music] the viofo a119 was launched in july 2016 and greatly improves upon their a118 camera which we previously reviewed and still recommend viofo has done something amazing
and produced the first dash camera which combines great video quality and warning notifications with a stealthy, capacitor design for less than$100 we’ll explain what all of that means but if you are new you might find our guide on choosing a dash camera quite helpful let’s delve into the camera starting withconstruction
the a119 has a wedge shape similar to thea118 on the front is the f/1.8 glass lens which is a higher quality than many otherbudget cameras the lens can now pivot from side to side as well as up and down which allows for increased adjustments after itis installed rotating it you’ll have the 2.0†lcd which is larger and sharper than the a118 and is a good brightness during the day
on the back you have the mounting hole and four metallic stripes which interact with the optional $10 quick release gps mount i think the a119 looks a lot nicer than thea118 instead of a plain shell there’s an interesting tessellated pattern on the sides which also improve grip when removing the camera on one side there’s a usb port and av out on the other is the microphone, microsd andreset ports
when tapped the camera seems to be of an average thickness although the plastic does seem to be a nicer quality over the a118 pressing on the camera it’s reassuringly,solid i think many people will appreciate its stealthierdesign the wedge shape and black colour help disguise and hide that it’s a camera however the new grey adhesive pad is quitenoticeable
looking at the packaging, it’s fairly standard for a budget camera no real complaints except i wish they used a thicker cardboard for improved protectionduring shipping inside, the camera has the usual cover andlens protector the accessories below were all neatly packaged a pleasant addition to the usual mount extra adhesive pad and power adapter was the wire clips which help you secure yourcamera
i want to give props to viofo for producing a manual that’s readable and useful, ifa bit short moving onto installation it’s a fairly easyprocess with the camera attached just peel the 3mtape and press it against your windshield it's more secure than a suction mount but i didn't like how the tape jiggles compared to the mount on the thinkware f50 i couldn't see any vibration in the recordedvideo
there is an optional gps mount for $10 which transmits power and coordinates to your camera through the pins gps in dash cameras is used to log your speed and position not give you directions on where to go it also helps in two other ways first you don’t need to remove the usb cable before pulling off the camera
second the cord inserts from the top whichavoids having the cable awkwardly sticking out if you’re using the non-gps mount viofo included an 11.5’ power cable which is longer than the standard 9’ length found in most dash cameras this lets you route the cable around the windshield in larger vehicles as well, the power adapter is a separate
two port adapter compared to a combined unit it's rated up to 3.1 amps so you can power your camera and charge your phone atfull power moving onto setup the a119 is ready to go out of the box but you may wish to change a few settings like the time and date this is done through the camera's menu there’s no desktop or smartphone app
viofo has done a good job with the overalllayout a minor gripe is that you have to turn offrecording first otherwise pressing the menu button will take a photo which is not useful as well i wish viofo used the layout of the garmin 20 where you have digital labels above the buttons to make it easier to understand what you’repressing getting into the menu
most of the usual options are there so i'm only focusing on the few issues thatexist starting with gps you can turn it on and off but you can’t control if your coordinatesand speed are overlaid onto the video when this review was made there was no option for miles per hour but it was scheduled for the next firmwareupdate the screensaver feature turns off the lcd
after a set period of time which is useful, but the 1 second option makes it difficult to access the menu the a119 doesn’t approach the level of customization found in other cameras like thinkware or the mobius camera where you have finer controls but i think most users won’t notice moving on we looked at how easy it is to usethe camera
on a typical day like most cameras the a119 turns on and records automatically when it receives power startup does take longer at 11 seconds but it shouldn’t delay you from leavingyour parking spot warning notifications are one of the mostimportant dash camera features as it lets you know when your camera has stopped recording now, your camera is exposed
to all sorts of environmental conditions hot, cold, humid as well, your sd card wears out over time the a119 has the best notifications of all the budget cameras i’ve seen it constantly beeps at you if the camera isn’trecording say from a missing or failed sd card or if you turned off recording yourself it doesn’t stop until the problem is fixed
unlike many budget cameras like the a118 which don’t have a warning sound i think viofo could improve warning messages by making it more like the yi the background should be more distinct and stay on until you fix the issue the notification led was done well solid red means it’s recording flashing rapidly means it’s not
it’s positioned well so it’s not easily covered by the rear view mirror let’s look at the emergency record button when pressed it protects the current file from being overwritten most people use it to lock accident footage or to save an interesting scene for later i don’t like the button’s placement as it’s easy to mispress and trigger thewrong feature
fortunately turning off recording will emit a constant beep but it shouldn’t be this hard to use going to the camera itself from the way it’s mounted to your windshield it can’t turn to face the side windows like you can with other cameras which is useful in filming police interactions or other interesting scenes
viofo is developing a circular polarizer which will help to reduce reflection and glare from your windshield keep your eyes out for a late august release if you're interested moving on let’s talk about the video quality the a119 is amongst the best cameras on themarket however in certain situations it falls behind the a119 records at a maximum resolution of2560x1440p
as for the recording time you get 3 and ahalf hours on a 32gb microsd card it’s compatible with 128gb cards which give 14.5 hours of recording time let’s first look at daytime video overall it’s quite sharp and clear even with lots of foliage and changing details because of the higher 20mbps bitrate you can also capture the license plates
of rapidly moving vehicles with no problems during the day it’s easier for cameras to produce sharp videos because there’s lots of light even the two-year old a118 looks good for the most part quality is similar but when we focus on license plates you can see a clear difference as well it has a great field of view
with a good balance between coverage and details if it’s too wide like the yi you’ll find reading license plates is muchmore difficult however, against better cameras like the opia2 it lags behind in two ways the first is dynamic range which is how well it renders scenes with widely contrasting light you can see the area under the hotel
is quite dark compared to the better exposedopia2 the second is during rapidly changing light, such as when we go under the bridge you can see it overexposes itself as the camera is slower to adapt if we move to a recording right before dusk the direct light can be a problem for somecameras the a119 correctly exposes the scene and isquite sharp now, let’s move to nighttime video
at night the a119 does a fantastic job under brighter city lighting but can fall a bit further behind in low-light situations i do expect video quality to increase as viofo releases updates even now, the night video quality is among the best cameras when you look at the video it's quite clear with less noise than many other cameras the a119 absolutely destroys older cameraslike the a118
it’s sharper and clearer under all conditions in this example the license plate is far morelegible and you can make out details along the sideof the road against the yi the a119 does better in citylighting and has increased sharpness in this moving example the license plate is readable in the a119 but not the yi under lower light the a119 tends to use a long shutter speed
which causes the videos to blur slightly you can see the license plate and the truck isn’t as sharp as the yi under ultra low light, it’s fine it can’t capture details outside of theheadlight region but that’s quite common for a camera that doesn’t use a low-light optimized sensor like the sony exmor we also tested the camera to see if the focus
is affected under hot temperatures we placed it in our hacked thermal oven at 60â°c for 30 minutes there was a minor reduction in quality but it’s much better than the yi we previouslytested this means while driving on hot days your camera won’t go out of focus the a119 also benefits from using capacitors not lithium ion batteries
these are used to store energy to safely shut down the camera after losingpower and capacitors are much better at handlingheat viofo rates the maximum temperature limitat 65â°c which is a little higher than most budgetcameras overall most users will be quite pleased with the a119’s video quality under mostlighting and temperature conditions if you want to look at the original raw footage
we have it available along with screenshots for easy comparisons on our website moving to other video features the a119 has a motion detection mode which is supposed to be used while parked to save space by only writing videos to thesd card when something happens i would not recommend the a119 for parkedrecording as you have to manually turn on this feature
by going through the camera’s menu if you forget to turn it off your camera maymiss footage as the detection algorithm is not perfect the a119 like most dash cameras has a microphone and we found the audio quality to be fairlyaverage this is a test of the a119’s microphonequality so we just also had someone who got nearlyrun over by a truck, luckily, no accident to playback videos you can use
any modern video player like vlc but to see your speed and position you will have to download the third party dash cam viewer program it will show your route and speed on a map which is useful if you have teenagers or guests using your vehicle if you take out your sd card to watch videos on your computer
or use a new card the next time it’s inserted into the a119 it will ask you to format the card beforerecording if you press cancel it will pop up again the next time you start the camera i’m a big fan of this feature an improperly formatted card is one commonreason a dash camera has problems while it could be annoying for experiencedusers
i think viofo has made the right decision in general they have done a great job on improving the reliability and user friendliness of thea119 it helps that they had pre-production betatesting with the community at dash cam talk and continually iterated on the design from the feedback they received as you can tell i’m a big fan of viofo's a119 it’s going to be my new starting recommendation
for most drivers make sure you pick the right sd card as some can wear out sooner than others see our guide for more for full disclosure i got this camera forfree from viofo but they had no influence over what i couldor could not say so that’s the end of this review. if you liked it please give it a thumbs up if you want more please subscribe
hope you found it useful and thanks for watching.
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