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我不是车神 -I am the 99 bend uncle + iRoad X10 review


therock
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In the interest of legality, I'm talking about a 'friend' who spend his time going up and down this famous '99 bends' road in South Bouna Vista... not me ah, :D

So this 'friend' hasn't been up to Mt Akima, but he has does about 1000 trips a year up and down this 99 bends, and has also done more than 200 trips in the Blue Mountains, gone up Genting, the 99 bends in Strahn on the Lyell Highway, (https://www.drivesection.com/features/essential-drives-99-bends-queenstown-tasmania/) and the pacific coast highway in both NSW and California..

 

So on a quiet road with no traffic, he takes about 3 mins to go down, a little longer to go up. And thanks to bro @Fcw75 there was good deal on the iroad X10, and he bought the camera and install it, after discovering that his cam has not been recording for more than half a year!

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It was on promotion in December for $480 with installation and a 128Gb SD card. 

So we will show some pics, and also review the cam in due course... 

Now remember this is a rather slow road, which forces you to switch down to much lower speeds, so the videos are not that fast or F1 like ya...

 

actually there are only about 11-12 bends and only four are really hard ones  

if you can get a clean run it won’t take long.. but beware.. if you go too fast you can be closer to the scenery than you like ..

Hope you like it and help papa buy more milks from NTUC 🙂

 

 

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The camera review:

Firstly the software

Well, that's probably the worst part... you can download videos from the cam without taking out the Micro SD card, and updates are also done via wifi.

There is a parking mode, but you can install a battery so you don't drain the car battery. Installation itself takes about 30-40 min. I choose Autotrend as recommended, and they did the job with minimum fuss. You can pay with a CC.

They removed the previous cam and cables, ran the new ones in the lining of the car, clean work. (PS: there is a nice mee pok at the nearby hawker centre, long queues so it's just nice to eat and come back)

The battery pack is installed under my front passenger car seat. 

The specs on this camera are found here:

https://global.iroad.kr/

 

The front cam is 4k, and the rear is High Definition. 

 

First the bad stuff, the software is not the best, and crashes a fair bit... but the camera itself is pretty impressive, but I'll let you be the judge from the videos.

The mike is also sensitive, and you can choose to download videos with or without sound. 

The GPS pack is optional so you won't see the speed of the car in the video unless you add that. Some say that may be a good thing...

The field of view is excellent, the images are pretty sharp, for both day and night, and even in park mode, the pictures are clear. There is a LED strip in the front to warn potential vandals that there is a camera and the camera gives a aural feedback when you start the car as well as when you enter park mode.

So format the SD card every now and then to clean up the system..

So is it a good buy?

Well at $480 I would say it's an incredible buy, the app and software not withstanding. Do sync with the camera every now and then to keep the time and date accurate.

At the regular price of $780, it has more competitors, especially from it's fellow Korean brand, Blackvue. There are also other brands that you can consider at the higher price. So wait for promotions and I would say I can put up with the cranky software, it's not that bad.

 

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You can go for more budget options, but the picture quality is paramount, especially when you need to claim. The additional park mode is now an essential IMO, and this camera has all these boxes checked.

 

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Videos

 

Upload more later, some connection issues.. 

 

Edited by therock
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I always curious to know why there are bus-stop at this  '99 bends' road in South Bouna Vista? People come from where to get off and get in the bus?

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18 minutes ago, 13177 said:

I always curious to know why there are bus-stop at this  '99 bends' road in South Bouna Vista? People come from where to get off and get in the bus?

The bus stop at nowhere serves the people working at ST/DSO Labs. There is a staircase leading downwards to a big building in the valley below. 

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20 minutes ago, 13177 said:

I always curious to know why there are bus-stop at this  '99 bends' road in South Bouna Vista? People come from where to get off and get in the bus?

For the hantus. 🤣

No need ez-link card.

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22 minutes ago, 13177 said:

I always curious to know why there are bus-stop at this  '99 bends' road in South Bouna Vista? People come from where to get off and get in the bus?

there is a staircase that goes down to some NUS/rear of kent ridge buildings. U don't know meh?

Edited by Lala81
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An iRoad has been in my car for 5 years now. Still on the original SD card. No problems with it and the downloads/connection to phone via WiFi works well. Only headache is when change phone, the settings are not carried over automatically.

Agree. Clear pics day and night, back and front cameras  

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I hope those dashcam manufacturers can increase the frame rate to at least 60fps or more with clean or low-grain images in low light/night rather than implementing 4k.

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28 minutes ago, Lala81 said:

there is a staircase that goes down to some NUS/rear of kent ridge buildings. U don't know meh?

I don't know le, never take bus there and alight at the '99 bends'. Thought that area is out of nowhere, only forested and hill. So now i know can lead to some building. 😂 Finally solve the mystery after so many decades.

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57 minutes ago, 13177 said:

I always curious to know why there are bus-stop at this  '99 bends' road in South Bouna Vista? People come from where to get off and get in the bus?

People who missed the steering at the sharp bends will have to climb up the slope and take a bus home 🤣🤣

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We watch the clip like it's very clear, but most dashcams still cannot capture details of moving vehicles.

I'm using 70mai A800S which is 4K and 60fps, also not up expectations. Generally viewing of course looks clear. Or is it my laptop viewer cui?

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@badlammy thats why need 60fps instead of 4k like what @DOBIEMKZ mentioned.

when viewing slow-mo, certain frames will show the license plate number.

1 hour ago, badlammy said:

We watch the clip like it's very clear, but most dashcams still cannot capture details of moving vehicles.

I'm using 70mai A800S which is 4K and 60fps, also not up expectations. Generally viewing of course looks clear. Or is it my laptop viewer cui?

 

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1 hour ago, badlammy said:

We watch the clip like it's very clear, but most dashcams still cannot capture details of moving vehicles.

I'm using 70mai A800S which is 4K and 60fps, also not up expectations. Generally viewing of course looks clear. Or is it my laptop viewer cui?

Linustechtips explained it. It's that the SoC is still stuck in few years ago mode. 

So doesn't matter what the resolution is, as long as the SoC is not optimised/powerful enough, image quality will still have hardly any difference.

Maybe exception would be like those tesla integrated systems. Surely they have some incentive to come up with better processing. 

 

Edited by Lala81
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7 hours ago, 13177 said:

I don't know le, never take bus there and alight at the '99 bends'. Thought that area is out of nowhere, only forested and hill. So now i know can lead to some building. 😂 Finally solve the mystery after so many decades.

Prince George hall and King Edward Hall further in… 

and a reservoir on the other side..

further down there’s a large green expanse before you get to the condos and lwnddd areas 

there’s  a nice coffee place, a beer joint and a nice western with good lamb shanks 

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