Is the Coral LM5 the best selling 12” 2K mirror dash camera? Watch our review to find out. .
This is a dash cam and rear-view mirror for your car that simply attaches to your existing rear-view mirror. On the back there is a 2K resolution dash camera and under the mirrored surface there is a high quality IPS display.
In the box, you get the dash cam mirror itself. A long Micro-USB to 12v cable to power it. You get a free 32GB SD card to store captured video and images onto. A test certificate and a Chinese manual. And finally you get an additional 1080p rear view camera that is attached to 10meters of cable to install it to the rear of your vehicle.
As I said earlier, not only will the LM5 act like a standard rearview mirror, it also has a fullscreen IPS display underneath it. You can toggle between them either by tapping on the mirror display or by pressing the main function button that’s located underneath.
It uses the entire 12” mirror for its IPS touchscreen display. Once enabled you can view what the dash camera can see very clearly, alongside all the functions you have enabled, and there is a power indicator at the top right too.
Along the lower middle area there are a few key function buttons. The first button allows you to mute the built-in microphone, then there is a button to take a manual photo from the camera, you can start and stop recording with the middle button, and the final two buttons are to save an event recording and to enter into the settings menu to interact with its many on-board functions.
In the settings menu you can set loop recording length and volume of playback audio, to activating the geforce sensor and enable the camera to monitor whilst you are parked. You can enter your license plate number from here too (this adds your licence plate number over your recorded videos) and you can also set up screensavers, change the video capture compression and also setthe refresh rate.
. It’s bright with a wide field of view, and it is very responsive. Its touch input is consistent and reliable, and it’s built-in processor is fast enough to quickly switch between its various menus, functions and video playback.
There is no WiFi and app support with this camera, so you either have to pull out the SD card and view your recordings on your desktop computer, or you can view this content on the wide 12-inch touchscreen display. Viewing playback on a big display such as this is much faster than viewing in an app on your smartphone.
To enter into playback mode, you simply tap and hold anywhere on the screen to enter into its menu. From here you can view back all the video clips on the mirror display by selecting a thumbnail in the menu on the left side of the display and view your selected video on the right half of the screen.
You get a super long Micro-USB power cable to charge the dash camera. I would have preferred this cable to be Micro-USB, or even USB-C to future proofing it little. This is important if you’ve already spent time installing a power cable around your dashboard interior, but this is less of an issue if this is your first dash camera. It’s unfortunate that the cable is molded to the 12v adapter that doesn’t have any additional USB ports. If you don’t have access to any other charging ports in the car you will not be able to use this socket to charge your phone or any other device. The good news is that I was able to charge the camera from a USB cable connected to a power bank, so if you have a Mini-USB cable long enough, you could connect this camera via a different cable to a 12v Dual USB adapter instead.
Another niggle I had with the was that the charging cable connects to the top of the mirror display, which reduces the overall aesthetics in the cam. Personally, I would have liked to have seen it attached more discreetly at the back of the mirror.
Installing the mirror display was super simple. I recommend that you connect the camera to a wall adapter to add a little charge to its internal 500mAh battery before installation. This allows you to see the camera view on the display without first plugging it in, to allow you to get the best placement on your rearview mirror before you connect up the main power cable.
Although the mirror is a super wide 12 inches, the camera can only be positioned on the left side. It can’t be rotated to have it on the other side for us right-hand drivers in the UK.
With its built-in sensors, I would like to have been able to rotate the dash cam and have its interface rotate and adapt to its new orientation. Once I mounted the display as close to the edge of my review mirror, it just wasn’t long enough to hide the review mirror of my Mk7 Golf in its entirety, again, reducing the overall aesthetics a little.
It’s unfortunately that you can’t replace your existing mirror either with this display, because there simply aren’t any mounting holes or ways to attach it, other than around your existing mirror. But as there are so many mounting types in vehicles I can understand why this isn’t available, but I would have liked to have seen a general mounting solution to replace the my mirror with this display instead.
The dash cam carries some decent specs. It has a 2K recording resolution of 2560x1440P. It’s worth pointing out that you don’t see this entire capture on the mirror display, it’s more of a horizontal crop along the center of the full video being captured – so you have to bear that in mind when adjusting the camera’s overall position. There is a 6 glass wide angle lens that features a 160-degree field of view, which offers a nice wide angle view of the road ahead of you.
Videos are recorded in MP4 format with the choice of using either h.264 or h.265 compressions and at fresh rates of either 50 or 60Hz. With these specs you get a great level of detail and clarity in the videos that are captured from the dash cam. Daylight captures carry good detail, smooth frame rates, and great quality, thanks to its high quality lens and wide field of view. Night time recording quality is also very good, with little glare and detail is kept sharp and clear when compared to my 70mai Pro dash camera.
During my time with the LM5 I found a few issues that I would like to see addressed. The first is that I couldn’t see how to turn the dash camera view from displaying when I started the car. I always had to manually turn it off every time I drove, as I found it distracting and more so I would like to use the mirror more often than view the dash camera view on the display.
A minor issue I found with the LM5 was how it attaches to the mirror. It uses these rubber attachments, which makes it less stable on your existing mirror. This leads to more vibration in the mirror than if it was more solidly attached. Perhaps a firmer or ridgid clip system would have been better here, but I can see why a softer plastic was used to suit all types of mirror sizes.
I wanted the mirror to cover the entire exiting mirror and sadly even with a wide 12-inch display, it just wasn’t enough to fit the camera on one side and cover the entire mirror on the other. But with that said, I like having the camera integrated on the mirror than attached to the windscreen. It is less obvious from anyone viewing from the outside.
I found the built-in speaker to be a little too quiet for my liking. The microphone also didn’t really capture as well as my 70mai Pro dash camera does. The speakers look like they are firing out of the back of the display, which means audio is being sent straight into the existing rear-view mirror. This results in a quieter overall audio quality, where I think downward firing speakers from the bottom of the casing would have been much better here.
I was unable to review the rear view camera module. But its cable length and high resolution lens will be sufficient for the purpose of a rear view camera. With built-in reverse assistance on the large 12-inch screen, I can only imagine how much better that will improve the experience when reversing in a car with limited rear vision.
The Coral LM5 Rear-view Mirror Dashboard Camera retails for . There is a lot to like with this product, however there are a few refinements that could be made to make it truly a must have accessory in your car or a recommended replacement for your existing dashboard camera.
