Verdict
The Road Angel Halo Ultra is one of the cheapest 4 K dash cams you may grease one’s palms , and it bewitch superbly elaborate videos , Clarence Shepard Day Jr. and dark . It ’s passing wise and stocky , too , but with modified storage and upgrade potential difference , it ’s a slight disappointing overall .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Road Angel ’s range - topping Halo Ultra dah River Cam might seem dear , but it ’s in reality one of the cheapest 4 K car cameras you ’ll find oneself .
In fact , at the clip of my review , it was ignore to just £ 160 , take a shit it look like fabulously good value . But dig a little deeply and you might still uncover some letdown .
Design and features
The Halo Ultra is an unusually heavyset dash photographic camera . It does n’t have a screen , or any controls other than a unmarried routine button and a status brightness , so Road Angel has shrunk it down to just slenderly magnanimous than a Mars bar . To fit it , you put an static sticker on your blind , then adhere the riding horse to that . It ’s comparatively easy to slay again if needed .
My car has a chunky mold around its rearview mirror , but even so I could fit the Halo Pro Ultra so that it was almost haze over behind the mirror . It ’s very easy to obscure aside . This camera comes with a fag exponent lead story and a fitting tool to help release its transmission line under your machine ’s cabin trimming . you could also buy a hardwiring kit if you plan to use its g - detector see to it parking mode .
There are a few oddities about the Road Angel Halo Ultra . First off , it habituate a non - standard USB - cytosine connection , so you ca n’t power it through a generic lead . Strangely , it also has 64 GB of onboard warehousing which ca n’t be enlarge through a microSD calling card . Given that each three bit segment of 4 thou footage weighs in at 616 MB , it can only store around five 60 minutes of footage in totality . If something happens in Land ’s End , you ’ll need to break off and download it or it ’ll be overwritten before Birmingham . For those that drive long distance , the upgradeableNextbase 622GWmay be a better choice .
The other disadvantage of this arrangement is that you ca n’t just protrude out the microSD and browse your footage on a PC . This might n’t be an event if you could link up the camera and pasture that from a computer , but its non - standard port seems to dominate that out . While you could power it on from a computer using the supplied USB cable system , it ’s not detected as an external drive .
This intend you ’re stuck using Road Angel ’s smartphone app , which unfortunately is n’t the best . Once you ’ve install it , you ’ll need to colligate to the camera ’s onboard Wi - Fi , which is simple enough . However , on my GooglePixel 4athe app would n’t subsequently detect the photographic camera .
I dig out an old telephone with Android 11 , on which it work utterly . Road Angel tell me it is n’t aware of any connection issues . It could be something specific to my phone , although this did n’t have any problem connect to theRoad Angel Halo ProI also reviewed .
Once in the app it ’s not like a shot obvious where your videos survive . You may see curt incident recordings triggered by the g - sensing element , but your full television history is accessed by dragging the timeline on the springy thought chit . I found that counterintuitive at first , but it should be a great optical way to find a moment in meter and watch your location on a mathematical function .
Unfortunately , I found the reality firmly to voyage . Once you find the second you want to download , you have to look while it transfers a three - minute transcription to your phone at a few megabytes per minute . There ’s no choice to leave this lead in the background , for example while you dig out other section of television you desire to download , but you may cut it inadequate if you ’ve passed the last relevant moment of the action .
Although the sprint cam itself faithfully get a GPS lock and recorded my speed , the app did n’t show any localisation or telemetry data . It ’s unfortunate that this did n’t seem to work , although it would n’t be all important to reporting an incident supply you could remember yourself where you ’d been driving .
This camera also has number one wood aid features including lane - departure and onward hit word of advice . I regain these a small distracting and a bit trigger well-chosen , but they might be helpful in an older vehicle without similar systems built in .
Performance and video quality
Whatever my misgivings about this camera ’s features , it gets one thing absolutely bang on . By day or Nox , it recorded some of the best quality video I ’ve find from a hyphen cam . Of course , having a 4 K sensing element helps here , but high - res cameras do n’t always get the best image – particularly in low light . The Halo Ultra ’s SONY IMX415 sensor obviously did n’t get that memo .
By day , the Road Angel Halo Ultra captured extremely crisp 4 K footage . As with the Halo Pro bundle I ’ve also tested , this camera did n’t just get sharp video – private figure were less fuzzy than I ’ve insure from many dash Cam River .
The net effect is it ’s often potential to stop playback and make out details like number plates , even if they ’re on a motorcar coming towards you or move across the frame . This more than makes up for the maximum 30 underframe per second this camera bear – better to have 30 nappy images than 60 or 120 clouded ones .
This is the best dash cam I ’ve tested for nighttime recording . It share the Halo Pro ’s power to enchant detail in flukey lighting , but with even high resolution . I could make out several park car figure plate from my trip around the stoppage , and the detail of various road and shop signs too . My only criticism would be that its exposure might be improved if it was a stay brighter , but deplorably this ca n’t be changed .
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Should you buy it?
If you want quality 4 honey oil video day and night , then this television camera ply it .
With no microSD card expansion slot and a reliance on the smartphone app , this bolt River Cam is fiddly to get footage off .
Final Thoughts
This is an excellent dash cam in many ways , but it ’s also rather compromised . I love its design , and its video calibre , which is genuinely about the best I ’ve seen .
But I do n’t like being force to apply an app to view footage and positioning data – particularly given it does n’t seem to mold that well . I ’m also not keen on have just 64 GB of non - upgradeable computer storage : it ’s not enough for a pretty typical tenacious distance return journey .
Ultimately , I wish Road Angel would merge the sensing element and design of this camera with the supply flexibility of theHalo Proor theNextbase 622GW . This would make for a truly unbeatable package .
Trusted Score
How we test
We screen every dash Cam River we go over good over an extended menstruation of meter . We practice received tests to liken features properly . We ’ll always assure you what we find . We never , ever , consent money to review a product .
Find out more about how we test in ourethics insurance policy .
FAQs
No . There ’s no compatible one available .
No . It has 64 GB onboard , but no memory card expansion slot for expansion .
You do n’t have to configure the Halo Ultra , so it will record your journeying even if you do n’t have a smartphone . However , you could only watch your recordings by connecting to the camera ’s Wi - Fi connection and using Road Angel ’s Android or iOS app . If you have an stroke , or you just want to check it ’s working , you ’ll need a telephone set or tablet .
