Koonlung K1S Dash Cam Review

Koonlung K1S Dash Cam Review

Koonlung K1S is a dual channel dash cam (means that it records what’s ahead and after your vehicle). It’s the most discreet dash cam that we’ve reviewed so far, thanks to the separate recording unit. Since the recording unit of K1S is separate, all you need to mount on the front and rear windshield of your car are very tiny and stealthy cameras. Hence, you can have the recording unit sitting in the glove box of your car and the cameras (almost hidden) at front and rear wind screens.

Koonlung is a Chinese company that released the K1S dash cam in early 2015; K1s records good quality videos during day time and average quality during night time (see video samples). At night time, much like other dash cams out there, the front cams’ video quality is a bit better as the front cam has higher bit rate than rear one (Front 13 & Rear 9 resp.)

As we’ve said earlier that K1S has got a separate recording unit, this means that the camera has more than 2 parts; in fact K1S comes in 5 parts.

Here’s how:

1. Front Cam
2. Rear Cam
3. Recording Unit
4. GPS (optional)
5. External Button (Optional)

The external button (optional) is what you’d like to use when you want to save the current footage in to the K1S’ memory card. Also, the same external button doubles up as recording start/stop button too! During installation make sure to have easy access to the external button as you may need to use it during an emergency.

Now, since K1S dash cam comes in 5 parts (if you opt for GPS and external button) and all the parts are interlinked with cables, hence that leads to a bit of a cable mess in your car that you need to masterfully tuck away. But, Koonlung has done a real good job to label all the cables well so that there’s no confusion while installing as to which cable gets where.

Another K1S feature that we really liked is the changeable battery (yes, its battery based). K1S uses a standard battery (that’s used in many action cameras nowadays) hence, in case if your K1S’ battery dies then it won’t be a pain in rear to get a new one.

The standard features, such as, loop recording, auto on/off, date & time stamp in video, speed stamp (if you’re using GPS) etc. are present in K1S. Furthermore, with K1S, you have the option to turn off the speed stamp with video in case you don’t want dash cam to record your speed (helpful when you know you’re exceeding speed limits). Also, Koonlung includes a cable with all K1S dash cams that’ll enable you to playback videos on a DVD player.

K1S has parking mode but it’s un-buffered; this means that the camera will come alive and start recording if it senses someone activity (via G-sensor); since the parking mode is not buffered, K1S will record events that happen after the impact is detected and not before the impact (like Vico Marcus 4).

Like most other dashboard cameras, there’s a microphone in K1S that is really of bad quality. It’s almost impossible to decipher anything that the microphone records.

K1S supports 64GB memory cards (officially) but some users report that K1S even works with 128 GB memory cards too. With 64 gig card you can have approx. 5 hours of front and rear cam recording.

All in all, K1S is a very good dash cam; however, its video quality isn’t that great but not that bad either.

Do have a look at its day and night time (front and rear) video samples that we’ve included below.

Here’s a list of things that you get in the package:

1. K1S front and rear camera
2. Recording module
3. Instruction Manual
4. Warranty Leaflet
5. GPS module (optional)
6. External button (optional)
7. Power adapter
8. Tonnes of cable

Here’s an image of what you get in the package for your guidance.

Koonlung K1S – Pros & Cons

Pros:

1. Extremely discreet
2. Separate recording unit
3. External emergency button
4. Speed stamp can be turned off.
5. Changeable battery

Cons:

1. Average video quality
2. Bad microphone
3. Lot of wires to tuck away

Koonlung K1S – Video Samples

We request you to view the video in full screen and choose the maximum resolution; this will give you a better understanding of video quality captured by the dashboard camera.

Day Time Video Sample:

Front Camera:

The front cam of K1S records very good videos during day; all the details are clearly visible. However, there’re other dash cams out there that records better quality videos that this one.

Rear Camera:

The rear camera, during day time, performs well. There are a lot of details that the rear cam has captured; still the video quality is only good and not impressive.

Night Time Video Sample:

Front Camera:

During night time, the front cam records average quality videos. As you can see that the video quality isn’t what you’d expect out of an expensive dashboard camera.

Rear Camera:

The rear camera seems to struggle during night time leading to average quality videos.

Koonlung K1S – User Manual

You can download K1S English user manual here.

Koonlung K1S – Firmware

K1S Firmware can be downloaded here

Koonlung K1S – Softwares

You can download K1S soft-wares here.

Koonlung K1S – Our Verdict

K1S is a good dash cam from Koonlung; it’s got some features that no other dash cams have got. It’s really discreet and easy to operate. However, it’s the video quality needs improvement.

Hence, if you’re the one who’s looking for that “awesomely stealthy” dash cam and are ok with good to average video quality then K1S is the dash cam for you.

However, you’re looking for some real awesome dual channel dash cam then check out the Vico Marcus 5 and BlackVue DR650.

Where To Buy?

Check latest price and buy Koonlung K1S from following vendors.

Amazon US

Amazon CA