At a look

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Three channel, entrance, inside and rear
• Great captures from all three cameras–day and evening
• Embedded, watermarked GPS
• Clever adjustable lens physique

Cons

• Rear digicam cable wants angled connectors
• Overly delicate g-sensor at default
• Bright default publicity setting on entrance digicam

Our Verdict

Vantrue is again on kind with this reasonably priced (comparatively) three-camera (entrance, inside, rear) system. The video from all three cameras is excellent in each vibrant and low-light conditions. It additionally options GPS, voice management, and telephone connectivity. Good stuff.

Price When Reviewed

$299.99

Best Prices Today: Vantrue Element 3 sprint cam

$299.99

My final take a look at a Vantrue sprint cam was the Element 1 (E1), a intelligent, compact design with weak video captures. Day captures had been satisfactory, however necessary particulars in evening captures resembling license plate numbers had been almost unattainable to discern. To optimize the picture required both including or eradicating a polarizing filter.

That was then; the three-channel Element 3 (E3) is now, and it’s a distinct animal fully, producing superb captures day and evening from all three of its cameras. Good on the corporate for the polished comeback.

Of course, the E3 can be twice the worth at $300, however in efficiency and options, it’s aggressive with the top-ranked Cobra SC 400D, which prices $100 extra. The E1 wasn’t aggressive with a complete lot when it got here to video.

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

Vanture Element 3: Design and options

The Element 3, because the title hints at, is a three-channel system that includes 160-degree field-of-view 1440p entrance captures, plus 165-degree FOV/1080p inside and 160-degree FOV rear captures. All at 30 frames per second. There’s additionally a 2560x1994p mode for the entrance digicam, although the uptick intimately is delicate.

Note that 1994p takes round 120MB of storage per minute, 1440p takes about 100MB, and the 1080p lower than 80MB per minutes. Recordings are, in fact, deleted as want be (until saved by you or the digicam), however the bigger the TF (micro SD) card, the higher. The Element 3 will settle for as much as 512GB (U3/Class10/A2).

The entrance and inside cameras are housed in the identical single physique, whereas the rear digicam attaches to the again window and is related by way of a cable. All connections are Type-C. Nice.

However, this brings me to the one situation I had with the Element 3—the cable that connects the rear digicam to the principle physique makes use of straight fairly than right-angled Type-C connectors.

The cable being thick makes it considerably troublesome to bend and the straight connections stick out in ungainly vogue. This made hiding the cable troublesome on the rear window, and negatively affected my skill to position the entrance digicam the place I wished it. Hardly a deal breaker, however puzzling on such an in any other case intelligent design.

Note that there are angled Type-C adapters obtainable on Amazon for lower than $10. Not that that excuses Vantrue.

Vantrue would possibly’ve mitigated the impact on entrance placement for those who may join the rear digicam to the semi-adhesive mount, however that solely helps the Type-C energy cable, which, paradoxically, is angled! If you forego the rear digicam, you may join the angled energy cable to the principle physique. Then once more, purchase a less expensive entrance/inside digicam is that’s what you need.

While the semi-adhesive mount of the entrance/inside unit is adjustable solely vertically, the entrance digicam’s lens physique will be tilted each vertically and horizontally—a intelligent trick I haven’t seen earlier than. It will even settle for the elective $20 polarizing filter. The rear digicam additionally makes use of a sticky mount.

The Element 3 opts for bodily multi-function buttons on the underside of the principle physique fairly than a contact show for navigating options and setting issues up. Said setup was comparatively straightforward and also you’re walked by way of the method if you first energy on the digicam. The supplied show, whereas not contact, is a really crisp and colourful 2.5-inch IPS unit with extensive viewing angles.

Vantrue features a Bluetooth distant “emergency” button that may be mounted in a handy location so that you don’t have to achieve as much as the digicam to save lots of a snapshot or the present video.

The E3 additionally helps voice instructions, together with such all-time hits as: “video start” (begin recording), “take photo,” “lock the video” (emergency file save), “turn off/on audio” (microphone off), “turn off/on screen,” “turn on/off Wi-Fi,” “show front/rear camera,” and “inside video on.”

Of course, the whole lot should hook up with your telephone today and the E3 does that. I wax cynically, however the app could be very helpful, permitting you to dump movies and work together with the embedded GPS information to see precisely the place you’ve been. Note that the E3 and telephone talk by way of Wi-Fi so your telephone will lose its Wi-Fi web.

Vanture Element 3: Video and efficiency

Having been singularly unimpressed with the Vantrue Element 1’s video (particularly at evening), it was good to see the corporate again on its recreation with the Element 3. The video captures from all three cameras had been wonderful through the day. Of course the 1440p entrance was extra detailed than the 1080 inside and rear captures, however all nonetheless confirmed good element, colour and movement compensation.

I’m paying particular consideration to the latter today after my latest expertise with the Garmin DriveCam 76 and its shot-through-jello wobbling points. (Once an indicator of older GoProfessional expertise.) The Element 3’s seize high quality isn’t fairly the perfect I’ve seen, but it surely retains the horizon regular.

As with the Element 1, I discovered the entrance captures barely over-exposed on the default setting. This will be ameliorated within the settings part. All the captures proven under had been taken on the default publicity settings.

Jon Jacobi

You would possibly discover a particularly faint horizontal line by way of the rear captures (the primary is immediately under). It’s a heater wire, not a defect within the digicam. It’s what occurs if you set up with out measuring. Regardless, you may see that the overall high quality from the rear digicam is kind of good.

I did have to scale back the g-sensor sensitivity to cease the digicam from saving the whole lot within the “Event” folder. But that’s common for my automobile with its stiff road/observe suspension (Ohlins, for those who should know).

The Element 3’s greatest space of enchancment over the Element 1 is the evening captures proven under. They had been A-OK throughout—i.e., from all three cameras. This is, once more, with out the polarizing filter.

Above is the entrance nighttime seize, which reveals much more element with the Element 1. Below, you may see that the nighttime inside photographs are additionally nice because of the infrared lighting.

You may even discern element out the rear window utilizing the inside digicam, and there’s not one of the blow-out from the infrared that you simply see with some cheaper items.

The rear captures at evening are greater than satisfactory, as properly. Note that my window wasn’t pristinely clear and there’s nonetheless the blurry line within the center from the heater wire. Sorry, I used to be completed testing by the point I found it. Don’t make the identical mistake with placement in order for you good captures.

One small situation with the E3 was tremendous delicate/aggressive energy biking. Merely turning the ignition key from inside power-on to crank-the-starter place prompted the digicam to close down and restart. Not an enormous deal, however a tad annoying and it takes 10 seconds or so earlier than you’re recording once more.

If you haven’t learn our “What to look for” part in our Best dash cams roundup, a brilliant capacitor resembling that within the E3 will final many extra cost cycles and performance higher within the chilly, however hardly ever maintain the digicam powered on for longer than it takes to save lots of recordsdata. Batteries enable the digicam to remain on longer in case the 12-volt is killed in in incident, however finally wears out and doesn’t carry out properly below actually chilly situations.

Should you purchase the Vantrue Element 3?

The Element 3 proves Vantrue again on level by way of video captures and design—the adjustable lens physique is a very intelligent function. If it weren’t for the ungainly rear digicam cable and barely over-zealous default publicity setting on the entrance digicam, I’d don’t have any complaints in any respect. Still, it’s a worthy discount of a three-channel system.