There is no doubt that an extra pair of electronic eyes on the road is invaluable when pursuing compensation for an accident claim or to avoid falling victim to a crash for cash scam! With that being said, I have for review today a small GPS car camera capable of taking video in all lighting conditions. The DOD LS460W windscreen-mounted dashcam camera comes with a 2.7 inch LCD display on the back, user manual, DOD Software Player CD, two windscreen ball-joint mounts (a suction cup and a sticky-back) as well as a generously long car charger which plugs in the cigarette lighter.


Controls and Functions
The DOD LS460W has eight control buttons in total, two of them (the power and record buttons) are located over the top right corner. The record button (located next to the power button) has multiple functions depending on the mode you are on. In playback mode, you press the record button to play and pause. In camera mode, you press the record button to take pictures. In recording mode, you press it once to record and press it again to stop recording.
The other six control buttons are located on the back of the camera on either side of the LCD screen. The two buttons with the arrow key symbols are used to navigate within the menu. The button with a triangle and an exclamation mark is the "SOS Emergency File Lock" which works during recording mode to lock the recording file. The button with a microphone symbol is the mute button which mutes the mic. The menu button is located just above the mic button and it's used to turn on the on-screen display, exit and saving menu settings.

There is also an AV output port, USB port, white LED light, GPS antenna, reset key and microphone (built-in). There are also two rubber slots on either side of the camera which are the HDMI output slot and the T-flash slot where the micro SDHC card is inserted. It's worth mentioning also that the white LED light on the front of the camera is used when using the camera at night to take pictures.

During recording. the camera overlays the time-stamp and geo-tags (longitude and latitude GPS coordinates) on the video footage. which is great to have should you need solid video proof of where exactly the accident took place. Other stamp readings that appear during recording include speed-stamp (you can set it to KMH or MPH), time of day, registration number, and camera model. It's worth pointing out that you can turn off the speed-stamp off as well as the date stamp.

DOD LS460W Menus
The DOD has two menu pages. Press the menu button once to show up the first menu page and press it twice to show up the second menu page. In the second menu page you will find the option to format the memory card, change the language, set the date/time, turn the LED on, turn speed-stamp on/off, change flicker reduction (50Hz or 60 Hz) and the factory reset option. The option to hide the GPS coordinates in the video footage is located in the first menu page. Scroll down to the option called "GPS Track" and select off. The GPS coordinates won't show on the video footage though the GPS speed and coordinates will still show in the DOD Software Player.

Getting Started
The DOD LS460W camera is ready to use right out of the box once the micro SD card is inserted. You can clip the DOD LS460W camera with either the suction cup mount or with the sticky-back ball-joint mount to hold the camera onto your windscreen. Unclipping the camera from the mount is easily done by squeezing the top section and sliding the camera to the left. There is no fiddling around with clipping and unclipping the camera, which is great because in the event of an accident you can quickly unclip the camera from the mount and take it out of the car with you to get a close-up video and audio recording.
As soon as you press recording, the camera starts recording in the default 1080p resolution which runs at 30 frames per second (FPS) and saves the recording onto the micro SD card in the Video Format MOV multimedia format, which is compatible with both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Aside from 1080p, you can select the recording resolution to be 720p (at 60FPS) and VGA. The field fo view of the camera is 140 degrees so you're able to see everything out front all around you. There's a setting to turn off the menu screen if you don't want the heads-up-display (HUD) on, and you can also set the HUD to time off after a certain time.

The Verdict
The DOD LS460W car DVR camera offers great video quality (Full HD), it's easy to use and it's compact. If you've ever used a GoPro before, you'll find using the DOD LS460W very familiar. The GPS is already mounted on top, which means no additional wires to run. The low light performance of the DOD LS460W car DVR camera is very impressive even on a rainy cloudy day thanks to the built-in SONY Exmor sensor. The built-in mic can be switched off and the HUD display shows a handy compass/speedometer during recording mode. Great for low-light/night photography. Check out the DOD LS460W dash cam.