In a world where people use cameras every day to document, exploit, and protect both themselves and others, it makes all the sense in the world to have a dash cam in your car. The vehicle is the final frontier for things-you-use-every-day that doesn’t have a video recording device in it. And you’ll be hard pressed to find a dash cam with better picture quality than the dual-camera system in the Vantrue Element 2(opens in a new tab), which boasts 1944P (Ultra Full HD) quality recording capabilities out of its front and rear cameras at a relatively reasonable $250 price point.
Picture-perfect quality out of the box
Immediately upon opening the Element 2 box, the efficiency and effectiveness of the camera were on full display before I even plugged anything in. The design of the camera is slick, boasting a touchscreen center console that allows the user to map out the specifications of the dash cam.
I decided to mount the camera from the top of my car and the adhesive has held up well after nearly three months of using it. I found that keeping it mounted from above keeps it out of my line of sight and anymore I hardly ever notice it.
Two glaring misses from this camera are the lack of any printed manual, which makes setup a lot more difficult, and the lack of any internal storage, which necessitates a sold-separately microSD card.
Luckily the Element 2 seems to be compatible with any microSD containing up to 512GB of storage after formatting it. That seems to be enough storage for at least a few weeks of driving depending on how often you’re behind the wheel.
I decided to thug it out and I tried to set up the camera without looking at the manual, to little success. I couldn’t figure out how to set up the rear camera until I looked at the manual online. It’s entirely possible these cameras started shipping with a printed manual when it went to market in July, but my early-release camera did not come with one.
You will be able to set up the camera regardless of if you have any functioning USB ports in your vehicle as the dash cam is able to run entirely from the car’s auxiliary power outlet. The cord is also long enough that you should be able to mount it anywhere you want in your car.
Optimization features for days
The menu options are bountiful, from recording quality to audio options to basic optimization functions based on if the camera is mounted from the top of the car or right there on the dash.
My favorite feature is the several loop setups, which allows you to constantly record your driving in automatic clips ranging anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes at a time based on your preferences. If the microSD is full, the oldest video on file will automatically be deleted unless it’s marked for saving.
This feature is especially beneficial for gig economy drivers, both for their own protection and accountability in case a delivery is ever disputed. I used it myself when I delivered food this summer when I was in between jobs. And I imagine it would provide a lot of peace of mind for gig economy drivers who choose to work at night.
For people who love using voice-command features, there’s a toggle button that you can mount close to the steering wheel and when you press it you can tell the dash cam to start a recording, among other features.
You can also toggle a setting so the dash cam records audio in addition to video. I turned this on but my recordings didn’t have any audio, so I’m not entirely sure why that’s the case.
Regardless of the time of day, the cameras come through
Finally, let’s talk about those cameras. Designed to be effective in ultra-bright and low-light situations, these cameras will capture just about anything you could want out of a dash cam. The wide-angle lens captures more than you might expect from a dash cam, providing a full snapshot of what’s in front and behind you.
The cameras also appropriately adjust to various weather environments, capturing just about whatever you’re able to see from behind the windshield at any given time.
When you’re ready to offload your recordings to send any crashes you capture to your insurance company or post to social media (because what else would you actually want to keep from what you see behind the wheel), you can either connect your phone to the Element 2 via WiFi or go down the old fashioned route of putting the microSD card into a computer.
On iOS, the dash cam recordings and pictures aren’t automatically synced to the phone’s camera roll (nor can we expect that feature to even exist), which means you’ll have to download whatever you want to offload from the dash cam to your phone through a downloadable smart phone app.
Both the app and the offloading process can be a bit clunky and slow, but for as much as you’re going to use it, I can’t find a lot of reasons to complain too much about it. For a streamlined offloading process, I recommend just putting the microSD card into a computer.
I did find the actual recording process tends to periodically crash and stall unless you manually adjust it, which can be problematic and can cause you to miss recording an important moment. These crashes are few and far between, though, and it possibly might’ve already been fixed with a post-launch update.
Is the Vantrue Element 2 dash cam worth it?
Admittedly, I’m not an expert at aperture settings and frame rates for cameras. A one-credit-hour photography course was the only class I had to take twice in college because I’m just not a very photogenic person, in every sense of the word. However, even I’m able to see the difference in the picture quality between what the Element 2(opens in a new tab) produces compared to other dash cams. This camera is clearly among the top dash cams at its price point in the market today and would make a fine companion piece for any driver looking for one to put in their vehicle.
