DDPai Mini5 review: An elegant take on the dash cam

Price When Reviewed

$159.99

Best Prices Today: DDPai Mini5 sprint cam

$139.99

The $160 ($110 on sale through a coupon on Amazon on the time of this writing) DDPai Mini5, is without doubt one of the extra elegant entrance sprint cams I’ve skilled. It’s of the display-less (and largely buttonless) selection, however with the cellphone connectivity, most customers will barely miss it or the buttons. It additionally opts for inside reminiscence and pc connectivity over TF playing cards.

This assessment is a part of our ongoing roundup of the best dash cams. Go there to find out about competing merchandise, what to search for in a touch cam, and shopping for suggestions.

DDPai Mini5: Design and options

The Mini5 is a flattened cylinder roughly 4.15-inches lengthy, 1.45-inches deep, and a hair lower than an inch thick. The 140 diploma field-of-view, 4K UHD digicam is by far probably the most distinguished characteristic on the primary physique. The solely different notable bodily options are an emergency save button on the left and a Type-C port on the suitable, plus an exercise mild on the again (inexperienced means energetic).

The mount is a self-adhesive (semi-permanent) cage that the digicam itself slides into. You connect the Type-A-to-Type-C USB energy cable (an aux adapter is included) after the digicam is in place and it helps hold the digicam from slipping out. Not that that may be a probably situation—the match could be very comfortable. The Mini5 and mount each have a considerable really feel. Many sprint cams really feel low-cost; this one doesn’t.

As talked about, the Mini5 options built-in eMMC reminiscence—64GB of it, to be precise. That’s a good quantity; nonetheless, the maths may be thought of a tad regarding. With the video captures taking roughly 234MB per minute at 3840×2160 (222MB for a full-res file, and 12MB for a smaller file used for show, and many others.) you’ll write the complete capability of the cardboard in lower than 5 hours.

DDPai describes the eMMC as having 3,000 write cycles, so that you’ll probably get round 15,000 hours out of the Mini5. That’s rather a lot for many customers, even journey givers. But there are additionally methods to chop down drastically on the disk house used: using h.265 (100MB per minute at 4K UHD ) relatively than the default h.264 in case your units help it, and flattening the decision to 1600p (50-60MBpm utilizing h.265), or 1080p (25MBpm utilizing h.265).

Good optics and processing could make up for lots of the lacking element from 4K UHD, however strive the three resolutions and see which you want finest. Normally, I step as much as 4K UHD solely when the surroundings warrants it. That mentioned, I’m unlikely to ever method 15,000 hours of sprint cam use so I would simply set it to max and overlook it.

The Mini5’s Spartan design is as a result of all settings are tweaked utilizing the DDPai app. The app options an set up information and alignment grid on the house web page’s reside view. You join through Wi-Fi (sooner 5GHz when potential), so there’s solely your cellphone service web whereas utilizing the app. Various parameters embrace g-sensor tweaking, how you can deal with GPS data, quantity, audio seize, and many others. All the traditional goodies.

There’s in fact a parking mode, nevertheless it requires that the digicam have fixed energy. This means a hard-wire package or OBDII energy cable. Note that it’s potential to run your battery down with such a setup, although most cameras will ditch the parking mode if an under-voltage state happens.

The app additionally will show a map of your travels, however solely after you obtain movies to your cellphone. The aforementioned smaller recordsdata are used for preview straight from the digicam. On a relatively random be aware, I’ll say that listening to “Hello Ding Ding Pai” each time the digicam powers up makes me smile.

So does the two-year guarantee, which is twice the size of most. Note that some cheaper sprint cams are solely warrantied for 90 days. I can’t vouch for DDPai’s customer support, however the firm’s PR have been dogged of their communications with me.

DDPai Mini5: Performance

Though I discovered the Mini5’s daylight video a tad overexposed, the impact was minimal and will be dialed again within the settings. Some of the vague mottling you see under is my windshield and on account of inclement situations the night time earlier than. Most cameras filter this out. However, all in all, day captures are colourful and reveal loads of element. That built-in GPS means that you can pinpoint areas and monitor your travels.

Night video was typically fairly good, although I did discover one occasion of flare blowout that you could see within the second seize. This should’ve been a freak angle and even vehicles driving carefully by didn’t trigger this phenomenon.

Below is the artifact I advised you about. As famous, this was the exception and customarily flare just isn’t a problem. Note that you could nonetheless see good element within the surrounding areas. And sure, 0km/h means I used to be parked. There’s a setting to alter this to MPH for the U.S. market. I didn’t discover it instantly as sprint cams bought listed here are usually set to MPH.

I ought to be aware that the Mini5 ran very cool. The unit employs a brilliant capacitor which permits the digicam to run lengthy sufficient to save lots of any present video, however to not seize post-incident motion ought to the automotive energy fail.

Should you purchase the DDPai Mini5?

Other than the built-in reminiscence sporting out within the far future (like Apple’s deliberate obsolescence with SSDs), there’s nothing in regards to the Mini5 to not like. It’s lush, exceptionally simple to arrange and use, and the captures are excellent. If you need the premium expertise supplied by the DDPai Mini5, go for it.