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Thinkware F100 HD Dashcam - Tested & Reviewed
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May 29, 2025
Ever gone on a beautiful drive and wish you could relive the vistas and views? Or do you suffer through horrible traffic and just want a recording of any potential accident that might occur? In both cases, a dashcam works great, and if you're a Lyft or Uber driver, it's just about a must-have with all your time on the road. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ tests out and reviews the Thinkware F100 HD Dashcam, successor to the popular F50 Dashcam. It works, and it's easy to use but are the results any good? Sample footage lets you decide for yourself... Learn more at Thinkware: http://www.thinkware.com/Products/Dashcam/F100
View Video Transcript
0:00
an entry-level dashcam that records
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everything let's check it out Dave
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Taylor here and I want to talk about
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dash cams now if you're not a lyft or
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uber driver you might not be sure what
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they are but it's this sort of device
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it's a little camera that primarily is
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intended to record what's happening in
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front of your vehicle at all times but
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some of them also can record what's
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happening in the car and others can
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actually record what's happening behind
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your car the idea is that it all goes on
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to a little teeny tiny SD or micro SD
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card and that gives you video footage if
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you get into an accident if you are a
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driver and you have an unruly passenger
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whatever the case may be if you just
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want to watch your kids later because to
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see what they were doing in the backseat
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I suppose you could do that too but dash
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cams are pretty fun and they're
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particularly fun if you've got a long
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road trip that you're heading on so I
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checked out the think where f-100 and
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this is their entry level it's sort of
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like their Lego of dashcams it's a
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successor to the f50 and it's actually a
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pretty nice little device as you can see
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it's very small and it does a full HD
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dual channel recording system so you're
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getting 1080p at 30 frames a second out
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of the front camera that's this and this
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gives you a hundred and thirty five
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degree of view you can optionally plug
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in a rear camera and you can also
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optionally plug in a GPS unit to get
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your exact coordinates as you're driving
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but let's go ahead and let's just look
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at some footage that's much more fun
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right so this first footage is just a
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quick daytime shot and obviously I've
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sped it up to make it a little more
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interesting fact is it's not very
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exciting to watch someone driving and
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then this footage is actually nighttime
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footage and you can see it's a little
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bit harder to see what's going on it's a
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little bit more out of focus maybe but
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still both of them can be very useful
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and fun and if you're assembling for
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example a video about your big trip or
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your road trip to visit your kids in
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college or to go to the beach or
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something
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then cutting actually into some of the
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traffic you might have driven through or
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winding roads or as you pull up to the
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beach that could be really fun so
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there's a lot of fun you can have with
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this now to be fair it really is kind of
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an entry-level unit and so it doesn't
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have Wi-Fi connectivity for example so
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it's really hard to adjust it to get it
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just right what I found was that I put
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it in I thought I had it at just the
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right angle luckily I did and then I
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just let it go and it basically
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automatically records in a continuous
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loop and it's one minute segments so
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once it fills up it just starts
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overwriting the oldest so you never run
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out of space and this particular one the
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f100 comes with a 16 gig card that is
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enough for a lot of hours of driving and
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so if you are driving along and you
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realize that you would noticed an
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accident 20 minutes earlier or something
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you can definitely still capture that
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footage so there's much fun but again no
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Wi-Fi no ability to use a smart phone
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app to see what's going on or even to
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adjust the settings turns out to adjust
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the settings is a little bit complicated
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because you end up having to run there's
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a Mac or PC app called dashcam and
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here's an example this is the Mac
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version and you can see it lets you
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watch this and if you have rear cameras
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and if you have the GPS all of that will
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show up but as is just the base unit did
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app is a little bit disappointing it
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doesn't even show what speed I'm driving
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at which might be good in this case but
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I'd like to know that so in that app you
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can adjust the settings on this device
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but with the device itself there's
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really no way to connect to it directly
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from a phone or even have like
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configuration buttons so that takes a
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little getting used to it's not
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necessarily the most advanced unit on
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the market but then again it's not
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priced to be there are two three four
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hundred dollar units that are really
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cool and have lots of really nice
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features and frankly have screens right
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there you could actually see on the
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screen and confirm what's going on this
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is far more discreet in fact I put this
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on my car dashboard
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it was behind where I would see the
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rearview mirror so I literally couldn't
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see this so all that I saw was the wire
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running down which is easy to forget so
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this becomes something that's really
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nice and is certainly at a nice
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entry-level price now let me tell you
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about what else going to tell you so
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there has a parking mode so you can
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actually have it running while your
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car's parking or parked and you've
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walked away the issue with that is that
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anything like that isn't going to work
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with the regular car adapter you're
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gonna have to hardwire it to your car
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battery because it's gonna need power
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even when your car's off so I didn't get
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a chance to try parking mode there's
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also an accident or what they call G
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sensor or G shock mode and that's
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actually also really cool is that
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if you get into an accident it will
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immediately not only record everything
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that's happening but it'll actually
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protect those particular video segments
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so later you can go back and review them
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and see was it really that other guy's
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fault or was it kind of because you
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weren't in your lane or whatever
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happened one minute interval loop
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sections or loop recording like I said
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and you know you really want to price it
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around because the version that I got
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came with a 16 gig card but I've seen
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online other companies are selling this
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product with a 32 gig card
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having said that 16 gigs a lot of space
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when you're doing something like this so
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unless you get the optional rear camera
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and the optional GPS you're not going to
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be generating a huge amount of footage
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and my guess is that couple of hours of
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were continuous loop is going to be
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plenty so let's see has a microphone and
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built-in speaker exactly sure what the
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benefit of that is but I suppose it's
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interesting I did find that I didn't
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realize I sing along to song sometimes
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without being conscious of it so I've
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edited that out of the footage you saw
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for your own benefit
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the front camera is at 1080p but the
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rear camera if you get the optional rear
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unit that's only 720p that's worth
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noting more importantly is everything's
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wired so if you want to have this on
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your front on the windshield and then
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you want to have the
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camera you're gonna have to run not just
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the wire down for power for this but
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you're also gonna have to run a wire all
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the way from the front windshield all
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the way to the back where you will
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actually have the rear camera mounted so
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there's a lot of wiring involved I would
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guess at the level you're doing that you
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might want to do a professional install
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and have it done nice and discreetly at
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which point maybe you would upgrade your
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unit - because you're investing some
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substantial money in it at that point
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still this is kind of like a build it or
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DIY sort of dash cam which is fun and I
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like that so only thing left to talk
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about really is the price but before I
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get there let me ask if you can click on
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that subscribe button really appreciate
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if you can subscribe to my channel thank
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you now let's start with the accessories
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this is the think we're f100 HD dash cam
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and the rear camera accessory which I
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don't have to show you is $49.99 the GPS
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unit and both of those actually plug in
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to this and the GPS unit is $34.99 the
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f100 itself with 16 gig micro SD card
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and the power cable and a bunch of
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different mounts and windshield mounts
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and everything and even a micro SD to SD
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adapter all of that's included in the
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box that will run you a hundred and
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$9.99 and I found it at BH video photo
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video comm so B&H is one place you can
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look you can also just go onto the think
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we're website and you can check it out I
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think these are really fun I think that
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if you're taking a road trip or
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something it could be really fun to get
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some footage of what's happening in
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front of you and of your drive could be
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great memories who knows anyway this is
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dave taylor i'm gonna go put this back
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in my car and go for another Drive which
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means i'll catch you in my next video
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[Music]
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