Hands down, this is the best NVR for on the market right now for the money. You get 1080p IP cameras (rebadged HikVision, an outstanding OEM with a great reputation) and one of the sleekest, slimmest, cleanest looking NVR units out there, packing POE, HDMI (and VGA) output and gigabit LAN connectivity, plus tons of included storage space and one of the best software interfaces out there.
Setup was super simple, even though I eschewed the uPnP and manually forwarded the necessary ports. Everything else was simple and intuitive and everything has worked flawlessly right out of the box. Instructions were clean, clear, concise and written by a native English speaker (shocking, right?), which is rare in the consumer electronics market. If you can set up a router for your home network, you should have no problem with this unit, it is very much user friendly. Swann offers free DDNS service, so you can remotely access your NVR from anywhere on the web without having to cough up extra money to your ISP for a static IP address, which is awesome.
The cameras themselves are top of the line, as you can find out by researching the HikVision OEM. Picture quality is stunningly good and if you've played with security cameras before, you will immediately see the difference. These are not toys, they are seriously expensive, high grade cameras and account for the vast majority of the purchase price for this package (as in well over a grand between the four included cameras and 240 feet of cable they come with). I've been super impressed with the image quality, including the nightvision / IR and will be keeping an eye out for price drops so I can pick up a few more. I'm currently running 6 cameras with this unit and it performs like an absolute champ. The POE functionality is 10x better than having to deal with separate coax and DC power connections, not to mention the fact that Cat5e cables are so much easier to work with than coax.
There's definitely a premium attached with this unit, but it is tailor made to work with the rebranded HikVision cameras and to take advantage of their high performance. Besides looking good and having a sleek form factor, under the hood the software is well designed and feature rich. Remote access to the NVR is simple, responsive and intuitive. It's also pretty easy to set up storage to NAS units, which is something I'll be implementing down the road if the included 2TB ever becomes too limiting (perhaps once I get up to 8 cameras).
On the whole, I don't regret this purchase one bit. It was worth every penny and you truly get what you pay for. As is often said, cry once, buy the best and have no regrets. There is no better system on the market right now, and the cost difference is, in my mind, completely worth it. I would buy again and I will be purchasing more cameras to flesh out my install. Beautiful unit, outstanding image quality and great software.
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