Price: $79.99 after $20 Mfr’s Instant Rebate
Valid: Oct. 29 – Nov. 29, 2015
Cobra was known for its two-way radios. As the dash cams picked up in US market, Cobra entered the market with quite a few models, such as budget CDR-820, mid-range CDR-840 and high-end CDR-900. All received mostly positive reviews. The retail price for CDR-840 is $149.95. It sells at $101.27 (as of Nov 3, 2015 @ 23:11 GMT, Details. We get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.) on Amazon. Costco offers $79.99 after manufacturer’s instant rebate. It’s the best deal at the time of writing.
The CDR-840 features 1080P full HD video and includes an 8GB micro SD card which allows you to record 55 mins 1080PHD footage straight out of the box. 32GB Class 10 micro SD card is one of the best selling accessories. The mini HDMI output allows the video directly play on HD TV.
Most reviewers are very happy with the video quality of the CDR-840 during the day time as well as at night. The ease of installation was unanimous. Few reviewers pointed out the “wide angle” claimed by Cobra is not “wide” enough. The small design with high resolution was mentioned in many reviews. The internal GPS embeds exact location and time in every recording. The G-Sensor senses sudden acceleration and collisions to automatically capture and protect critical footage, although many people purchased it just for entertaining.
Comparing to CDR-820, CDR-840 is 2x in size and has a built in GPS. Both are equipped with 1.5″ screen and 118 degree lens. Many reviewers love the size of CDR-820 as it easily hides behind the rear-view mirror. CDR-820 sells at $64.99 on Amazon. The other sibling CDR-900 has 2.0″ screen on a smaller body. It’s equipped with AmbarellaTM A7LA Chipset which ensures better image quality and night time performance. CDR-900 is also Wi-Fi enabled. You can directly stream the live or recorded footage to iOS or Android device to view or share the footage. Lots of reviewers prefer CDR-840 to CDR-900 due to the problematic issues of those extra features. You can easily find a CDR-900 less than $110 on Amazon.
Unlike KDLinks X1, CDR-840 automatically grabs the date time from the internal GPS. Although the view angle on KDLinks X1 lens is 165 degree, much wider than the CDR-840. It also causes barrel distortion on the video.
Bottom line, CDR-840 is extreme simple to use and produces very good video quality. Costco’s price on CDR-840 is unbeatable.