The Importance of Dash Cams in Ireland – NEXTBASE 422GW REVIEW

NEXTBASE 422GW REVIEW

Imagine one day you’re walking back to your parked car at a public parking lot, get in the car and just about to drive when you notice, your passenger-side mirror is gone! Apparently, another car drove too close ripping it right off and scraping the passenger door while at it. No eyewitnesses and public security cameras in sight. The insurance won’t stand over it for sure.

Now, what if there is a way to prove who did it, what if there is footage of the incident showing they blew off your side mirror and still kept driving not a care for the world like they OWNED THE FREAKING STREET!!! (This actually happened to my car while parked at a supermarket).

Few weeks ago the good people from NEXTBASE  were very kind to send me their latest dash camera, 422 GW front and Gen 2 rear models, for review. A bit of warning though, there are lots of cables.

Quick Unboxing

Straight out of the box you will be greeted with, the manual. The manual is to explain to you how to rip the interior, mainly the headlining, of your car and wire half of it so to keep them somewhat out of sight. A how-to guide video will be available soon on my YouTube channel (You can subscribe by clicking HERE).

Under the manual you get the longest charging cable I ever had (4 meters actually) that plugs to your cigarette lighter and of course the pièces de résistance the NextBase front dash cam. The Rear camera came with another long Mini HDMI wiring that can connect directly to the front dash cam.

Build Quality

The moment you take out the dash cam you instantly realise the super high quality of its build. Although it mostly plastic, which I’m guessing for weight purposes, handling it feels very sturdy and solid. Maybe to keep the filmed footage safely intact after any unfortunate incidents. The 2.5”(inch) touchscreen is super high definition, 1440p in fact, with crispy clean view of the map.

Quick note, it is recommended to use at least 32gb with class 3 recording speed. I recommend SanDisk’s Extreme PRO as I’ve tried other brands and didn’t hold up in recording quality.

Dash Cam Firmware

Once you turn it on you are lead through some quick setup guide with language and bluetooth connection. The packaging also came with a yellow warning card asking the user to charge the dash cam for at least 2 hours, which I did.

You will need to download the Nextbase camera app, called MyNextbase, in your AppStore or Google Play first. This is so you can connect directly with dash cam when it asks you at the setup stage and check for any firmware updates the dash cam needs.

Note: You need patience at this stage because the entire firmware setup might take over 30 minutes without being able to use your own phone. Reason? Drifts back and forth onto WiFi to complete the setup for technical purposes. Another advice is not to use other apps during this part of the setup, I ended up having to restart all over again.

Once done you are all ready to go!

The front cam kit comes with two types of windscreen mounts, a suction unit that lets you remove it if you wanted. The other is a glue adhesive that permanently sticks for customers that know they will not need to use it for another car. I went with the suction unit since I will be replacing my car in few months.

The Dreaded Cabling!

Unless you know what you are exactly doing I would recommend going to your recommended garage mechanic and ask them to set it up for you. Of course, this will come with some extra cost but completely worth it. I on the other hand enjoy taking things apart, probably more like breaking them.

Side note, I interned as a mechanic few times in my college years, I wasn’t allowed to get my driving licence before knowing how the car worked. So I know what I’m doing. Thank you dad.

Model 422GW: Key Features

The dash cam that I received comes with a 1440p camera lens, basically super high definition. You also have two what I consider essential features, the Emergency SOS and the Intelligent Parking Mode.

The Emergency SOS  mode is a subscription based service that can alert emergency services using your phone of you location if there is an accident where it detects you are not responsive.

The Intelligent Parking mode is a simple feature but very useful, and probably where the most common accidents occur, while the car is parking. The way it works is once you turn the car off the G Force sensor in the dash cam stays active and automatically records for 3 minutes anytime there is a bump to the car.

One more feature, which sounded great at the start, is the built-in Alexa from Amazon. If it is active you can use it just like your Alexa Echo at home, if you have one of course. The only two setbacks are, one you need Alexa app on your phone, two need to keep your bluetooth function on at all times on your phone. Something I don’t like to do that for security and battery saving reasons but that’s just me.

I must also add how well hidden the front dash cam is behind the rear view mirror when it is placed on the windscreen.

How Much Is It?

The press release I received from the company states that the Nextbase 422GW model with accessory kit is priced at €159.99, their main official website prices it at €199. The best price I found is on Amazon, which was priced at €136 (£122).

The Gen 2 rear camera is priced at €50 (£44.95) on Amazon.

Is It Worth it?

Mostly yes. There seems to be a growing amount of what the car insurance industry are calling “Cash for Crash” where people purposely jump in front of the car and falsely claiming they were hit by accident. Another reason is clarifying a claim dispute if one comes up. The best reason is insurance discount! Yes, many car insurance companies often offer discounts if you have a reliable dash cam in you car.

The Gen 2 rear camera comes separately, personally it is worth the buy if you are already going with the front dash cam and wiring your car interior.

Note: You must be warned not to publicly post any footage from dash cams on social media platforms due to privacy laws.

A bit about Nextbase

Nextbase is a private company, specialising in the Dash Cam sector. With a background in car technology, Nextbase moved into manufacturing Dash Cams and has since claimed a 80% share of the UK market by volume, according to data acquired by independent retail analysts GfK. Sales of Dash Cams – small windscreen-mounted cameras that record a motorist’s view of the road – have since increased by 850% in the last 4 years, making them one of the fastest growing categories of consumer electronics. GfK research further predicts the adoption rate of Dash Cams by the UK market will continue to increase through 2019, by which point nearly 15% of the total UK market will own a Dash Cam.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => We now get over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you.

Home

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking