Transcend DrivePro 10 dashcam
Big, bright, colourful and cheap, but some technical performance is mediocre.
$119 www.transcend-info.com
Dashcams are almost essential nowadays. Whether it’s to prove events to cops and insurers, catch a crim or to record a hoon for social media internet points, it’s surprising that so few cars have them built-in as standard. But there are common issues in dashcam world: devices frequently look bulky, cheap and besmirch the windscreen of your automotive pride-and-joy, while the best-looking models can be extravagantly expensive and complicated to use. However, Transcend’s DrivePro 10 instantly impressed us.
The dinky, 40-gram device has diminutive dimensions of just 58 x 36 x 23mm (plus a protruding lens) meaning it’s almost half the size of most of the market’s smaller models. The mount is also miniscule and yet crams in a lockable ball joint to enable an accurate outlook that doesn’t wobble. It fixes to the windscreen via a small, 3M, sticky pad.
It doesn’t have a screen and this has caused concern in the past: it’s harder to be sure that devices are recording when you can’t see a screen and there are too many tales of units malfunctioning and not recording for months before being discovered. However, the (nondistracting) flashing-blue, recording light and simplicity of the device gave us few concerns regarding reliability.
So, how do you know what it’s looking at? You connect to the 10 using Wi-Fi and a smartphone app. This might worry you if you’ve used Wi-Fi dashcams before as connecting to them can be an inconsistent pain. However, the 10 worked fine and we could easily see what it was capturing on our phone’s screen. It’s powered by the usual long, ugly, miniUSB cable that connects to the cigarette lighter. It also has an internal battery so it will record when external power is lost – whether the car loses power or you’ve set the G-meter to start recording when a bump is detected. There’s also an ‘Emergency’ button to record separate clips and store them in a special, easily accessible folder when pressed. It’s all very intuitive and simple to set-up and use.
Image quality is also impressive. The Full-HD resolution coupled with H.264 encoding and 60 frames-per-second capture speed delivers crisp and impressive detailed video in both bright and dark situations. It also has an impressive dynamic range whereby it can simultaneously capture both light and dark details in complex lighting scenarios. It’s not immune to being blinded by bright, low sunshine, though. All video is timestamped. Everything is recorded to a microSD card and a 32GB model is included.
It’s worth mentioning audio quality: the built-in microphone impressively captures whispered conversations on the back seat along with muted exterior noises.
Ultimately, it’s well-built, unobtrusive, easy to use, delivers great quality and works reliably – everything you’d want from a dashcam. The best news, however, is that it only costs $119 which means it’s one of the cheapest premium dashcams we’ve seen. Quite simply, if you want a dashcam and don’t require an expensive, UHD 4K resolution and complex fleet management features, this is the one to buy.