In this video, I review the BOTSLAB G980H 4K AI-Enhanced Dash Camera. You can buy this Dashcam for $219.99 from Amazon US 👉🏻 https://amzn.to/4bu6hvV, for £129.99 from Amazon UK 👉🏻 https://amzn.to/4baRJl5, and for €129.99 from Amazon DE 👉🏻 https://amzn.to/4dtT0W7.
TL/DR: The BOTSLAB G980H dash camera offers impressive 4K video quality with a Sony Starvis sensor but falls short with its 1080P rear camera and limited 25fps @ 4K front camera. The device has a 2.5” LCD display, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, and a user-friendly app interface. Installation is easy, but the ADAS feature may not live up to its ‘AI-Enhanced’ branding. Priced at $219.99, it’s a competitive option for those seeking good video quality in a compact dash camera.
This dashcam from BOTSLAB is already hitting the tarmac running as one of the best dash cameras to buy today, as it features a Sony Starvis IMX 415 sensor that offers great natural colour, WDR support, and most of all clarity and sharpness in its captured 4K video.
Unfortunately, the bundled rear 1080P camera doesn’t quite come up to par as the front-facing 4K camera. The front-facing 4K camera is also let down a little by its limiting 25fps capture Videophiles can step the front camera capture down to 1080P to get a smoother 60fps frame rate.
Its 2.5” rear LCD display shows what’s currently recording from either of the connected front or rear-facing cameras. Its three-button interface is used to navigate its menus and play back recorded content. It’s unfortunate that there is no touch screen input on this display or a wider case-filling screen to accommodate a more intuitive touch-input menu experience.
Thankfully, this dashcam has Bluetooth and WiFi app connectivity, and it is fast to connect and transfer stored video files located on the TF card with ease, thanks to 2.4 and 5GHz WiFi connection speeds.
Accessing settings via the app is far more intuitive than navigating through its tiny 2.5” display. All settings are present and changeable within the BOTSLAB iOS or Android app. You can also access a live feed (ideal when mounting the camera) and access historic footage across its many recording modes.
The camera installation is super quick and easy. One adhesive pad comes pre-fitted to its removable mounting plate. However, you must take care to position the horizontal angle of the camera correctly as the adhesive really does stick firmly to the windscreen once attached, without any horizontal movement in the mount or camera lens. The G980H comes with two easy-peel window stickers, so I suggest you use these for easier removal of the mounting plate, once the time comes.
Both power and rear camera cable connections connect to the right side of the camera’s vertical tilting mounting arm. Thecables are neatly angled upwards for a tidy cable routing up and around your car’s interior. Both cables have plenty of length to neatly route the cable around a suitable and discrete path to the 12V USB adapter port or its rear-mounted camera. In 2024, I do wish the power connector used USB-C instead of Micro-USB. This would make installation much easier for those upgrading to the G980H, as some may already have a USB-C cable wired up from a previous dash camera.
With the 4K dash camera installed and running, it was time to test out its day and night recording. After a week of use, I sampled the footage and was impressed with its results. Although this was expected from a Sony Starvis dash camera sensor, it is still pleasing to see the clarity of this kind in today’s dash cameras. Its level of sharpness and image clarity overshadows dash cameras of old. I was able to freeze frame and view number plates from oncoming cars across the road. Its colour saturation was natural, and the Wide Dynamic Range did a reasonable job at swiftly adjusting to night and dark conditions.
The 1080p rear camera also captured at a max of 25fps. It performed ok, however it did suffer a little over captures during motion when moving slower or at a standstill, especially during nighttime captures. Both feeds can be toggled on the camera’s LCD display, and each feed is stored as individual AA or BB time-stamped .MP4 files.
I encountered one downside of the G980H, its ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance System) feature. Some would suggest this is where the ‘AI-Enhanced’ branding of this dash camera is featured. However, this camera isn’t connected to the Internet and likely doesn’t have some local-based machine learning under the hood, so I would chalk this down as fluff and the ADAS is more of a ‘smart’ feature than coming close to being actual AI-driven (other than algorithms perhaps?). Anyway, it’s annoying at best, and it is only worth enabling if you’re a nervous or very inexperienced driver. Alerts include cars pulling away, if you stop too close behind a car, close to pedestrians, cornering too hard, stopping too hard, and aggressive change of lane. Surprisingly, I didn’t get any alerts for traffic lights changing as I have seen in other ADAS dash cameras. All of these alerts become very irrelevant for an experienced driver and they soon become over-sensitive to even the most sedate driving style. So eventually these will likely be turned down or turned off completely once you’ve experienced a handful of them during your first drive out with the G980H.
Playing back footage on phone via the BOTSLAB app overlays some “AR”meta data consisting of live altitude, speed and GPS pathway in a small round window. Looking at the marketing of this feature, I expected to tap this circle to open a Google Maps view of my route, but this didn’t happen and I still to this day can’t see how to access this view – maybe you need a desktop app to view it this way?
At $219.99 in the US, this camera isn’t the cheapest dash camera out there, but considering its price in the UK and DE stores with sales, this dash camera comes in quite competitively considering its build quality, ease of use in its phone app, its ADAS features (if you don’t find them too annoying to have turned on), and most of all, its day and night capture quality from its Sony Starvis sensor. If you’re looking for a Snickers-sized dash camera to tuck away on your windscreen whilst capturing some great videos, this is one dash camera to consider for your car.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Brief overview
0:40 – Unboxing
1:33 – Features & Design
3:24 – Power Up & Formatting
3:56 – LCD Display & Navigation
4:26 – App Connection, Updating & Settings
8:12 – Front & Rear Camera Installation
11:07 – Day, Dusk, Night Camera Quality
11:54 – My Impressions
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