Cobra CDR825 DashCam – 1080p through your windshield
March 2015 – As sports POV cameras have pushed up to 1080p capture and larger screen sizes, the dashcam marketplace is shifting the same to manage the automotive applications. The dashcam market is growing due to documentation needs for some businesses, insurance and automotive adventures. It is not just for capturing meteors in Russia anymore. To expand their already dominant market presence, Cobra introduced the new CDR825 dashcam. The unit features a 2.7” screen, removable microSD card slot, a g-shock sensor and uses an Ambarella A2s processor.
The unit is fairly plug & go for basic operation. It comes with an 8GB memory card, but can support up to a 32GB card. The 8GB card records about 1.7hrs of 1080p30 video. The unit can also support high frame rate (HFR) with the new Ambarella processor for 720P video at 60fps.
Cobra CDR825 1080p Dashcam
The operation of the advanced settings and some of the standard adjustments, such as G-sensor sensitivity level, are bet done after going through the manual. The ecofriendly minimum packaging does not include the full manual only a quick start guide. The menu button brings up multiple self- explanatory options and setting controls for the unit. The G-sensor allows the unit to automatically start and stop saving clips on the unit. Depending on the smoothness of the suspension in your car, it may reset quite often in the factory default setting which is optimized for family sedans and crossovers/minivans. When used in a car with a sports suspension or a stiffer ride, the sensitivity has to be set to a lower level.
The key in the testing for our focus was the image quality and data transfer capability. The data transfer was tested in two methods – USB cable and removing the microSD card and putting in a computer through a reader. The USB interface is USB2 for individual clips this method is fine, as it is a reasonable transfer rate for sub 500MB files (6-8min clips). For longer clips, it was faster to remove the SD card and transfer the files from the DCIM directory directly.
The images were checked in both 1080p30 and 720p60 mode. One challenge for dashcams is to set a reasonable white balance when the starting image is not necessarily the brightest or darkest to be captured. Most dashcams have a white flare issue, especially when driving facing the sun. This makes the images very difficult to make out and the glare and direct sun cause this problem to get worse. The CDR285 and the Ambarella processor do a very good job minimizing the affected pixels from these lighting extremes and producing the maximum allowable usable image per frame. The color stability is also very good with clip to clip consistency for objects and backgrounds. We tested the dashcam at speeds of 30mph and 65mph and there was minimum blur on the images at 30fps and close to unobservable blur at the 60fps lower resolution mode.
The unit worked well and performed as stated. The recommendations on the product are a slightly longer car cord to power, as the placement in new center consoles and dashboards is increased from pre 2012 models, and a downloadable manual that breaks out the content of the units menu systems.
