INTRODUCTION

   Around a week ago while i was driving on the right lane and minding my own business the person driving a car in the middle lane decided to cut me off and if i was going any faster than i did chances are i might be typing these lines from the hospital right now. Luckily i wasn't so i managed to avoid his car hitting mine just in time. The funny thing with that incident was that had he hit me with the rear end of his car he might had gotten away with it based on the current laws in my country. Now although i always have a dash camera installed (usually for testing purposes) in the car the courts don't really accept such evidence, officially that is. Unofficially however it's up to each judge to decide on whether or not he will see/accept such evidence so having a dash camera installed in your car can certainly come in handy. The Marcus 1 by VicoVation is one such car dash camera and today we'll be putting it to the test.

   VICO is the core value of our brand. The four letters stand for Vision, Integration, Creativity and Observation. Our attitude toward the brand is sustaining development. We apply the latest technologies for all product development. Our management strategy focuses on both globalization and localization. We have great ability of integration toward optical related products. We choose the most competitive key components with best performance, such as lens, sensor, compression chipset, and accessories. As for the software, we communicate with component suppliers and do the deep integration to present the best user-friendly operation interface. We are the team with new ideas. All features and operation interfaces are the outputs of the brainstorming. We believe that the unique features are made by a team of creativity. We have sharp observation on market demands and trends. This makes us to develop the most updated and competitive products. VicoVation® products are always easy operated and useful in life. VicoVation® is the combination of Vico and Innovation. We manage to make innovation on top of our core value. VicoVation® only presents the most in and best performed products.

   Some of you may recall our review of the Marcus 3 car dash camera again by VicoVation a while back which offered a very impressive XHD 1296p video recording resolution (2304x1296@30Fps) with the help of the brand new Ambarella A7LA SoC. Well the Marcus 1 model is nearly identical to the Marcus 3 with just two large differences, it only supports up to Full HD 1080p (1920x1080@30fps) video recording with a horizontal angle of 140 degrees (the Marcus 3 has a angle of 160 degrees). That aside the Marcus 1 shares the same exact housing, 3.1MP CMOS sensor, F2.2 6G Mega Pixel lens, 2 inch color TFT screen, built-in 3 axis G-sensor, microSD card slot (supports cards up to 32GB in capacity) and external GPS mouse support. Now Full HD 1080p may not be something new in the market and is certainly not as "impressive" as XHD 1296p but for most uses the first is plenty and has very little to be jealous from the 2nd.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Whereas the Marcus 3 arrived in a long red box the Marcus 1 arrived inside a blue one.

Product features descriptions are placed on both the top and bottom.

The specifications list is placed at the rear right above the bundle contents.

In the box you will find the Marcus 1 car dash camera, car lighter charger (4m cable), GPS mouse (60cm cable), suction cup mount, CPL filter mount, warranty card and the installation guide.

THE MARCUS 1 GPS PACK

Both the Marcus 3 and Marcus 1 models feature roughly the same housing so we see measurements of 72mm in height, 53mm in width and 33mm in thickness.

The F2.2/6G lens of the Marcus 1 can record FHD 1080p and HD 720p video at 30fps with a diagonal angle of 140 degrees.

Just like with the Marcus 3 located on the right side of the Marcus 1 are the mini USB charging port, HDMI output, GPS port and one of the microphones.

The second microphone along with the microSD card slot is placed on the left side.

A 2 inch TFT color LCD screen is placed at the rear along with 5 navigation buttons placed right beneath it.

For good or bad the Marcus line features external GPS mouse devices which you are required to mount on your dashboard by using the 3M double sided tape.

Attaching the 52mm CPL filter mount is very easy but since once again we didn't receive that filter from VicoVation we can't really comment on its usefulness.

USING THE MARCUS 1 GPS PACK

Prior to using the Marcus 1 car dash camera I recommend visiting the official support page to download the latest available firmware and program versions.

The 2 inch TFT screen allows the end use to choose the desired recording resolution, adjust image brightness, enable/disable the G-Sensor and the speed/position overlay system, enable/disable the lane departure and speed warning systems, check the state of the GPS signal (if you have the GPS mouse connected) configure the LCD auto off and brightness levels, enable/disable the date stamp on the recordings, enable/disable audio recording, adjust the recording volume and setup the time zone.

With the VICO Media Player you can playback your recordings and also check your position at the time via Google and baidu maps (seems that baidu maps are only available in Asia).

AUDIO/VIDEO QUALITY

As always to test this dash camera i used two cars both in day and night conditions which as always we uploaded on our own server and not YouTube in order to preserve the exact same quality. To download the two rather short clips (still roughly 60MB were required for both) directly just right click on the above images and then save target as.

CONCLUSION

   Although it was the first time we had received a product by VicoVation when we tested the Marcus 3 a while back we all enjoyed both the 1296p resolution and the ability to record Full HD video at 60fps. However much like most things the Marcus 3 wasn't really perfect since we did notice quite a bit of image noise especially in low light situations. Of course this is not something we haven't seen with other car dash cameras but we were hoping that the Ambarella A7LA SoC would be able to produce better results. Well the Marcus 1 also produced image noise something which you can see from our clips but like with the Marcus 3 it's certainly not much (however we still prefer the image quality of the BlackVue DR550GW-2CH). Audio recording is also very good but what really steals the show is all the available settings which you can adjust by using the 2" TFT screen. On the other hand the use of an external GPS mouse may not turn away potential buyers although a larger antenna means better GPS signal.

   Full HD 1080p car dash cameras have been around for quite some time now so as we speak prices for such products are quite affordable (at least for single camera models). The same applies in this case since currently the Marcus 1 GPS pack by VicoVation retails for just USD154.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 157Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk). Overall the Marcus 1 is a very good car dash camera and although the Marcus 3 and even the newest Marcus 4 models are better still this should easily cover 99% of the consumers out there. Of course there are better models by the competition but that happens all the time in every single place in the industry so that's not new. Bottom line the Marcus 1 GPS pack may just feature Full HD 1080p resolution but thanks to its features and price it grabs our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Size
- Image Quality (Sharpness/Color Reproduction)
- Audio Quality
- Built-In G-Sensor
- Driver Assistance Features (Speed Warning/LDWS/FCWS/Radar Warning)
- 2" TFT Screen
- 52mm CPL Mount
- GPS Mouse Included (GPS Pack Model)
- Price (For Some)

CONS

- No Built-In GPS & WiFi (For Some)
- Digital Noise