What is it?
The Abee M7 is sold by China-based website GearBest and costs £63.72 with free delivery – which is pretty cheap considering it is capable of recording in full 4k ultra-HD resolution, or in 1080p HD at 60fps. It goes without a GPS sensor, so won’t record location or speed information.
What’s it like?
The M7 comes in neat, brown cardboard packaging. The majority of the text is in Chinese, though specifications are presented in English. The instruction leaflet is in broken English but it makes enough sense to be useful. The camera interface itself is in English and it is all straightforward and easy to use.
The camera unit doesn’t feel as sturdy as those sold by Nextbase, but it stood up to being dropped and knocked around the footwell of a car well enough. The layout is straightforward and buttons are sensibly labelled, so it’s intuitive to get it up and running. No memory card is provided, but microSD cards up to 128gb are supported.
In terms of functionality the M7 works like any other dash camera. If it is connected to the 12V socket it powers up when the ignition is started and it will turn itself off when the ignition is turned off. By default it records three minute loops of footage until the memory card is full, after which it records over the oldest loops.
If an accident is detected via the shock sensor, or if the emergency button is pressed, the camera will save that clip permanently and won’t overwrite it. It can also be set to record two or five minute loops, or it can be set to record non-stop until the memory card is full.
Additionally the driver can tell the camera to stay switched on when the car is parked. It will then start recording when motion is detected, but since the battery capacity is quite low it’s not much use for parking long term.
The image sensor is capable of recording wide dynamic range, which means even when the sun is low in the sky it’s still possible to make out detail on the road. Image quality is very good for the most part, but in darkness it isn’t as good as pricier cameras. That said, it is a relatively cheap dash camera so it’s a bit much to expect the GoPro quality.
Even so, it’s still possible to make out a reasonable level of detail – enough to prove what car was at fault in an accident at the very least. The wide angle lens provides a good field of view around the front of the car, which ideal is for capturing incidents in tight spaces or at junctions.
There is no GPS functionality, however. This would record the location and speed of the vehicle accurately, which can be important to prove excess speed wasn’t a factor in any accident. That said, the Abee M7 is a fairly cheap camera. For the price it’s hard to complain. We have embedded a sample clip from the camera below, but YouTube compresses video so the raw footage is actually clearer.
Should I buy one?
Considering it can be bought for little more than £60 including delivery all the way from China, the M7 is an impressive dash camera. The plastic outer case might not be the strongest and there is no GPS or speed tracking, but there are no complaints about the image quality. However if you can stretch your budget there are better options.
Buy one from Gearbest - use discount code AbeeM7F for £14.15 off
