Thinking of purchasing one of the Garmin dash cams for your vehicle? Well, check this out to see what’s your best buy. If you are familiar with Garmin, then you’ll know that their technology is top notch. So it’s not surprising that their dash cams comes with such great technology. Whether it’s the Garmin Dash Cam 45, 55, or 65 it’s a constant improvement.
Looking at the Amazon customer reviews for these Garmin dash cams suggest that customers who purchased them aren’t all gung-ho over the product. At first glance t may seem that Garmin dash cams just might not be your best buy. However, Garmin listens to their customers and they are constantly upgrading and improving the performance of their products. That’s why some people are loving these dash cams. So let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
Garmin Dash Cams Product Features
Endearing features of these Garmin Dash Cams include:
- 2″ LCD Display size
- Red Light and speed camera warnings
- Driver alerts; Forward collision warning, Lane departure warning
- Incident detection (G-sensor)
- Snapshot feature
- Wi-Fi
- Great Resolution; for such a small camera the display is pretty cool
- GPS-enabled with automatic Incident Detection (G-Sensor) saves video footage on impact to show when and where events happened (GPS not available in every region)
- Includes memory card, G-Sensor, and Loop Recording
Looking at the features at a glance, it’s easy to see that this little dashboard camera packs a pretty hefty punch! For its size, it comes with more than just the basic functions of a dash cam. From the image below you can see that the Garmin dash cam is pretty sleek. But is it your perfect passenger?
Garmin Dash Cams Improvements
It’s nice to see people improve on their products. So for Garmin Dash cam 55, voice control was added, which was not a feature of the Garmin Dash Cam 45. Now that’s pretty nice. You now have the option to tell Dash Cam 55 and 65 to start/stop recording, take a picture still etc. So this can make for an interesting journey while you are on the road.
From the screen shot below, you can see the features and the changes that occurred with each one of these dash cams. But you have to love the red light and speed camera warnings. You definitely won’t drive pass another red light that’s for sure! You can save yourself the stress of a possible ticket and do something else with that money.
Apart from the voice control feature, improvements to the Garmin dash cam 65 includes a 180 degree wide angle, so you now have a wider view. Great idea, because the more it can captures, the better for you.
Overall, Garmin dash cams come with some great features. Be sure to check out the video below for more information. The driver alerts and collision warnings can help with blind spots and help you to be a better driver on the road. If you drive alone most of the time or at night, then you know this feature would be very handy indeed.
But with all these improvements, is any one of these Garmin Dash Cams really your perfect passenger while you’re on the road? Well, check out what customers have been saying about them.
What Customers think About the Garmin Dash Cams
At the time of reviewing these dash cams, the customer rating for these dash cams were as follows:
The Garmin dash cam 45 has a Customer Rating of 3.6 out of 5 Stars, while the Garmin dash cam 55 customer rating is 3.7 out of 5 stars. However, the Garmin dash cam 65 surpasses them both with a customer rating of 4.3 out of 5 Stars! So t
Garmin Dash Cams Pros & Cons
Garmin is top of the line when it comes to technology.
Pros:
The pros for these cameras are fairly obvious. Clearly the features are a big selling point. In addition to which, it’s small, easy to install, simple to use and the wide angle (180 degrees) makes it better. You can also sync Garmin Dash Cam 65 to your smartphone.
The Garmin dash cam 65W 1080Pw with 64 GB Mounting bundle seems to be the best option s far as these dash cams go.
Cons:
As far as these dash cams are concerned, some of the more serious issues are as follows:
Device overheating
For a number of people, the dash cam overheated even in “reasonable” heat. Reasonable being the heat it was built to withstand. Now if the dash cam is overheating then it’s not going to function properly and that’s a problem. Why pay a premium price for a dash cam that does not function how it was designed to? Of course that makes absolutely no sense.
Malfunctioning product
Apart from the overheating issue, some customers stated that the dash cam just did not work properly at all.
- For some individuals the product worked for less than a month.
- For others, it simply shuts off while it’s supposed to be working, even the upgraded Dash Cam 65.
- In some cases downloading the recommended software caused the dash cam to malfunction.
So clearly some of the Garmin dash cams just aren’t functioning properly.
Customer service issues
Now this is a big deal. We all know how frustrating it can be at times trying to get proper customer service. But it seems that the customer service over at Garmin is little to none existent. Some customers have complained about being unable to get in touch with the people at Garmin to handle these problematic product issues.
Pay shipping to return the product
Uh, I don't think so. First of all imagine having difficulty getting in touch with customer service and when you do, they tell you that you have to pay the shipping cost to return the malfunctioning product. Why should you be out of pocket for a defective product?
Maybe this is Garmin's strategy to stick you with a non-functioning product, but it's not a good strategy at all. Such a practice simply generates negativity for the company; hence the negative reviews. But there is good news if you buy the product from Amazon. So here's your loophole.
If you purchase a Garmin Dash Cam from Amazon.com and it malfunctions within the warranty period, then all you need to do is get in touch with Amazon's customer service reps and they'll organize a refund for you. If you buy it outside of Amazon, then sorry bud, you're on your own.
Now understandably things can go wrong with products; they aren't all created correctly so you might just get a lemon in between. But based on the customer reviews there seem to be more lemons in the bunch as far as these dash cams are concerned.
Our Recommendation
Hands down, our recommendation would be the Garmin dash cam 65W. Clearly it's an upgraded version of the Garmin dash cam 45 and 55. Garmin dash cams are so small and discrete that people won't know it's there and that's great! The voice commands are great as well. Since you can tell this dash cam to capture whatever you want it to.
The forward collision and lane departure warnings are nothing to sneeze at either and the alerts for nearby red light and speed cameras will certainly come in handy.
If you are still on the fence about getting yourself a Garmin dash cam, then our recommendation would be to look at the WheelWitness dash cam. This dash cam just may be your perfect passenger. With the exception of the Z-edge Z3 3" 2K Ultra HD, the other Z-Edge dash cams would meet that criteria easily enough. The Xmotion is also another great option, as is the Rexing and the KDLINKS dash cams.
Stuff happens in the front as well as the back of your vehicle. So if you want to entertain the idea of a dual dash cam, then the UVanture N2 Pro Uber dual dash cam is a great choice! Check out the great options below!