KENWOOD DRV-A201 - Full HD Dash Cam - 2.7" LCD Screen - 16GB SD-Card

I have only just had this fitted ....and I was told it was easy. As far as I can tell it does exactly as advertised!

I have used this dash cam for three weeks now to make sure this review is as accurate as possible. I have given it one star, as I can’t give any less, but to be honest the actual camera is worse than useless. To explain this, first I will list the good points:1) It is reasonably priced2) It is a good quality imageUnfortunately, that’s it for the good points, now the not so good:1) This camera automatically saves footage if it senses you have an accident. Surely that’s good, I hear you ask. Normally I would say it is. However, this camera is so sensitive that it saves footage after every pothole, speed bump, raised kerb etc. I have worked out that it saves around a third of the footage in the protected folder on the memory card. This wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the fact that all this footage is protected, so you have to regularly empty this protected directory from your memory card otherwise you would run out of space. In fact, the free card that comes with the camera is so small it would only last about a day without needing to do this.2) The worst problem, and the one that makes this camera worse than useless, is the fact that it will randomly stop recording footage. There appears to be no factor that makes it happen, it just decides to stop. I first noticed it when I was checking through the footage to see what had been protected and what had not, and I noticed about 20 minutes missing from both the normal and protected footage. The second time it happened I noticed the red flashing recording time had gone from the top-right of the screen when I glanced at the camera, and again it had missed around 20 minutes of my journey when I later checked. At the time of writing this review I have had the camera three weeks, which means I have used it around 30 times, and it has stopped recording journeys at least five times that I know of. In the end I have had to purchase a power adaptor for the car with an on/off switch so if I notice it has stopped recording I can switch it off and back on without any problem. Of course, the fact that you cannot rely on this camera to actually record all the footage when you use it makes it worse than useless in my opinion. If you do end up needing the footage for any reason you will have to hope it has recorded it, but you won’t have any confidence that it actually will have done.For reference, I have used the original high-speed memory card from my old dash cam, the one supplied free, and a brand new branded high-speed memory card and all of them have had the issues above. My only conclusion is that it is the camera with the fault not the cards.

quality camera, however keeps turning on when stopped, and overwrites protected files, Nextbase and previous Kenwood models didn't overwrite protected files!

I had old Chinese camera from 2013, that was recording in 720p resolution and wanted something better and newer. I don't need wifi and other fancy stuff. Just want the camera that records in decent quality and overwrites it.I read a lot of recommendations for DRV-A601W, so decided to check what other models are available. Found out that DRV-A201 model is basically the same as DRV-A301, but without wifi and app access, which I don't need. Sample recordings of DRV-A301 available on YouTube were of decent quality, so decided that DRV-A201 should be enough for me. I initially found it available from Warehouse at £44, but then, during Prime Day it was 30% off and bought it for £28, which I think is pretty good price for that camera.I used it over the weekend and I'm happy with quality of the recording. You can easily read number plates. When driving against the sun and through the wooded area, quality is not great, but I think, every camera would struggle in similar conditions. I didn't test it at night yet.It sticks pretty good to the windscreen, my old one used to fell off and trigger car alarm. Magnet is very strong and it's easier to remove the whole holder from windscreen, than camera from the mount.Kenwood Video Player software is useful. Shows the location from GPS data. I used it to review recent recording and locate certain place on my last trip.One thing I don't like, is the wide angle. Previous camera was 126 degrees, this one is 136 degrees and everything is a bit distorted. I like to save videos from some of my trips, so prefer normal recordings, not distorted. Will keep it in mind, when getting another camera in couple of years. Long term, I want to buy 4K camera, but good ones are a bit expensive.

She was delighted and fitted ASAP