Doing this stuff continually gives me some curious surprises. I had assumed that given the differences in culture Backup Camera system accessories would be cheaper and more plentiful in the US than the UK. Well here is one of the exceptions.

At £30 (about 45 USD) this basic screen is a steal. Obviously its pretty no frills at that price but consider what do you want to do with it? Hook it to a similarly inexpensive stand alone backup camera. Putting this together with 9 LED Day/Night Wide-Angle Waterproof Car RV Camera I looked at a while ago gives you a complete Backup camera system for less than £50! That’s way cheaper than the RAC Wireless Reverse Parking Camera that is getting the attention of late.

Of course its not Wireless in that combination and the convenience of that can’t be ignored. But still its a viable alternative to those who consider themselves a little bit handy in car DIY.

This is a small lightweight system as you can see.  But its small screen provides a pretty sharp and bright picture.  So it could be generally useful around the home as a easily portable mini screen for any number of devices. The manufacturer tosses in a UK plug style power adaptor so it can be used indoors as well as with the (supplied) auto adaptor without an fuss. A cheapie but potentially a goodie!

So as an alternate that trades more features for the possible drawback of being a dash mounted system we have the PLMN7SD 7″ LCD MONITOR from Pyle company.

As you can see its designed to be affixed to the Dashboard or similar flat surface in your vehicle. The system is nicely self contained and for a 7″ screen very slim and compact. None the less It will be slightly more of a challenge to fine a home for it than the Power Acoustik display reviewed earlier.

But I feel this display unit makes up for that nominal inconvenience with some  features the other unit doesn’t have. The PLMN7SD comes with a 3-In-1 Secure Digital Card™/Multimediacard™/Memorystick® Card Reader and a Mini Usb Input as well as a standard A/V input for your backup camera or other device; as well as pretty much all the features of the Power Acoustik screen.

The price is comparable at about $90 depending where you find it (an example link is at the end of this entry as usual) So your real choice here over the other is really what is most convenient for you. While the previous system folds away nicely out of your way this in the other hand is more flexible and easily carried from one vehicle to another. As I have said before if your looking for a double duty backup camera system to use on your SUV weekdays and as your RV backup camera, weekends that’s a useful option to have.

So it occurred to me that if I am going to include stand alone cameras I had jolly well better add in at least a few Stand alone display units as well!

So here is the first a 7″ display from Power Acoustik designed to fit where your regular sun visor does. I appreciated this as an option as when dealing with a Backup camera system you do not necessarily want a great big display continuously taking up space on your dashboard (unless it has some other function – like the sat nav combos) Nor did I feel that the readily available flip down DVD players were entirely suitable either. The danger their would be that while driving along there would be the temptation to look at something other than the road. And as road safety is what this site is about… probably not my best move…

So we have this device, overall its 9″x5″ in size and less than an inch deep (the screen as I said is 7″ visible) it accepts a single video input. As you can see it comes with a mini remote control rather than have controls on its fascia, this is not personally something I’d like. I hope to be able to track down something that has both a basic on panel control set as well as a remote. I am a terrible loser of remote controls and I have a fear that would happen all to swiftly with this one as well!

But apart from that the design is simple and elegant with decent brightness and quality. The main reason I include it is that as a slightly older design prices are beginning to drop and if you wanted a simple flip down display for your camera that you could later double up as a video display when you were stopped then its ideal. So I shall be checking out more modern versions from Power Acoustik ASAP to see how they have improved the breed. But for now the Power Acoustik PT-727MSV is the best value basic screen at about $90.