Papago GoSafe 550 Super HD 1296p 160 Degree Ultra Wide Angle Dash Cam with 8GB Micro SD Card

This review is to add to the list of not recommends over the the combined issues of 1. battery discharges more than it charges after driving 2. battery life naturally declining and leading to the more annoying issue 3. the camera, upon "first start" does not record, and instead asks you to input the dateI bought this to upgrade from the previous discontinued model, GoSafe 520 .Both cameras had this quirk where after the engine is turned off, it uses some battery, but at the same time while driving it doesn't appear to charge the battery, only run off power. So after about a month of usage you're slowly depleting the battery, if you don't charge it manually it'll lose all battery entirely. When it's completely depleted, upon starting up the camera will interrupt itself, not record, and ask for you to input the date/time which it forgot. Only after physically clicking through the date/time selection will it actually start recording.You might forget to record, so it's not ideal, but this could be averted by manually charging the camera at home about once a month.This newer model, the GoSafe 550, the battery decayed to the point even after typing the date, charging it overnight, and pulling it out, it still forgot the date. Maybe the bigger problem is the camera doesn't just record first and ask for the date later.I will give it credit through, Florida is pretty hot and it worked good for the first year, especially given the price. Warranty is only 12 months and it's probably may issue. Papago nowhere to be seen on any of the other reviews so this camera is probably abandoned.The camera is all not bad though.Image quality is good enough. If you get into a crash and everyone pulls over, you don't need to identify license plates at 10 feet. If they hit and run, that's another story. The function is supposedly above average as this was few dashboard cameras at the time and for the price with a 160 degree FOV. This is good if you live in highly urban cities, I'm no insurance adjuster but I imagine the most disputed claims are not you're at the red light and some red 2000 Chevy Impala reverses into you and cries rear end, the disputed one is the BMW running above the speed limit, changing lanes, and swipes your front tire.Anyways, the battery doesn't maintain power, so when you boot it up which makes it too risky to rely on, which makes it hard to recommend unless you really want that 160 degrees and you can't spend any more, although today this camera is probably outdated.Also, for some reason my Apr 2016 GoSafe 520 doesn't have the battery decay problem so far. They have been in the same car, the older model in the back, the newer one in the front, so conditions can't be to blame, the older one has seen even more heat.The 160 degrees was nice, but hopefully by now there's newer cameras, as this camera is probably too old.Or maybe it, like some other $100 electronics were only designed to work for a year. The outcome is the same.

I purchased this camera in July of 2018 and it recently started having issues freezing up while recording and the battery life quit months ago. I emailed the Amazon seller and explained the issues and asked about warranty conditions and was directed to Papago’s main office to which they advised me to the seller. I’m a little disappointed in the original price I paid for the unit. Having spent the money and now I have a dash camera that doesn’t work. I will be buying a new one but not this brand and definitely not this seller.

This worked fine for a little while, but it seems to have some faulty software or something. Whenever you try to turn it off it will freeze up and have to be reset. Sometimes not even that works. It took a couple months for this to start getting a nuisance and it's too late for me to return it but it's almost do useless to have right now. You can go throughout your day and then look up and notice that it's stop recording even though the screen is still on and all the buttons are unresponsive and have to reset it again.

After about a year, the internal battery barely holds a charge, so it no longer remembers settings between charges. You have to reset it every time it turns on.

I received the product in the mail with no problem and within the estimated date. and the product works great.

The battery will not hold the settings. I charged it overnight per Papago customer service. It holds for a couple of days and then you have to reset the date and time before you can ever use the camera. Once that happens, you have to reset it every time you start your vehicle. Papago replaced it with a "tested" unit that was worse than the first unit. Still negotiating for a replacement or upgrade, but I really don't like their other camera designs or features. Definitely would not purchase again.

I had the Papago 550 for just over 1 year and it stopped working......the menu would come on and I would select English and that is as far as it would go....this is after 1 year of working. I called tech support but they could not or would not help, I don't think they know what they are doing. I was told that it was out of warranty and I should probably just buy another one. Good way to make money but not off of me. I am tired of trying to get this to work so I am going to buy another brand in the next couple of weeks when there is a sale But rest assured at this point in time It will not be a Papago.

I've owned five of these. Only one is still working. For the four that failed, the issue is the backup power source fails after a year or less; when that happens, the camera loses its settings within minutes when the ignition switch is turned off. The camera still functions but won't keep the time/date settings. I disassembled the last one and it appears to be a cheap foil/paper capacitor "sealed" in foil; the electrolyte evaporates and the capacitor fails. Change the design to a replaceable coin battery and I'd give this five stars; until then, I'm going with a different camera.