Are you adding this camera to an existing NVR or computer system? Will it need to see well in low light?
I thought I'd toss out some observations of my own.
I have a number of what is claimed to be the very same Reolink camera you were considering. Mine are 3 megapixel, and do not have SD card slots. But when I followed your link, Amazon pops up a message saying: "You purchased this item on...". So it appears that Reolink updated the camera and kept the same model number.
In my defense, I purchased these cameras before I found this website and read all of the negative things about the brand. I bought six of them, and have four of them installed. One of the not-yet-installed units is now modified to kill its built-in IR LEDs while still allowing it to switch between color and monochrome modes automatically. This requires making a strategically placed foil trace cut on the LED/Light Sensor board. Obviously this voids the warranty, but that's not a concern of mine. I mainly just wanted to see if I could figure out what was going on inside and modify them to do what I want. But this points out one feature I wish these cameras had, which is a way to switch off the internal IR LEDs while still letting the camera switch from color to B&W mode to let me use them with external IR illuminators (which is always better than using the internal LEDs when possible).
Where I want to have cameras mounted on my house, it's always something of a hassle to crawl into some small attic spaces to run the wires and make up the connections. It's not terrible, but the whole exercise of properly wiring and mounting a camera is worth quite a bit to me in time and effort. So for most locations on my house, knowing what I do now, I'd opt for more expensive, but better-performing cameras. I guess what I'm saying is that my time and effort are worth enough to me to make it worthwhile to spend a bit more and install better cameras in the first place.
Further, I've spent a reasonable amount of money on a good PC, POE Switch, fancy router, cabling, UPS, etc., to operate the cameras, so in the end, the prices for the individual cameras become less and less important to me. And doing it all again, I would have started out with better cameras. But live and learn, I guess!
I haven't had the terrible problems others may have had with the Reolinks. At least not yet. The Reolink units I have work fine in daylight, but are quite noisy in the dark. They are working fine with
Blue Iris in my system, but I had to select the "Baseline RTMP" profile.
As people have mentioned, these bullet cameras attract spiders and I wipe them off daily. Fortunately, where these four are located, they're easy to reach. But the spider web thing is very real and quite annoying. So if possible, stay away from bullet-style cameras with built-in IR illuminators. The claim is that the turret style units will be better in this regard.
To that end, I've got a couple of 2 MP Dahua "Starlight" units with adjustable focal length that I'm anxious to get installed. Right now they're hooked up in my office, and the low-light performance is excellent. Far better than what the Reolinks give. But then again, I'm comparing Starlight models which are renowned for their low-light performance, and cost twice as much, so that's exactly what I expected and hoped for. I can't wait to get them installed outside where I can really see what a difference they make.
In the limited testing I've already done, I don't miss the extra megapixels going from 3 down to 2. Going from 4 to 2 sounds like a huge difference, but the thing to keep in mind is how the "math" really works when comparing digital camera resolutions. Since this is a "grid" of photosensors, the number of pixels increases as the square of the "linear resolution" (resolution along either axis). So going from 2 to 4 Megapixels actually increases the visual resolution not by a two to one ratio, but the square root of that ratio. So the real resolution will only be 1.414 times as great with the 4 megapixel camera as it will be with a 2 megapixel cam.
And 2Megapixels at a better quality can produce a better image than 3 or 4 megapixels at a lower quality. So as folks have said above, don't put too much emphasis on the megapixel ratings. You need to see the images from the cameras in question, compared under the same lighting conditions, to make a fair comparison. Also, some of the image processing may be better in the higher-end cameras, and that can make a HUGE difference as well. So there are a lot of variables and things that have to be played-with to get the best out of any of these cameras so you can fairly compare them.
For now, these Reolink cameras work fine. They're dandy in good light, but are quite noisy at night, even with their built-in IR LED illuminators operating. I haven't compared them directly with other competing cameras, but their illuminators tend to light up brighter in the center of the field of view and not get the edges of the scene as well lit. I haven't had any of them fail. They've been up and running for about 7 months. I wish I had installed better cameras to begin with, and I will eventually replace them all with the better cameras. So I'd have saved money if I'd bought the cameras I really ended up preferring to begin with. But they've served their purpose for me and been educational, if nothing else.
And if I had places to use them that had good light at all times, I don't think I'd have any real complaints about them at all.
Still, doing it again, I'd research people's recommendations and the great reviews by several of the regulars here, and choose better cameras (even if they cost more) to begin with.
I got the Starlight Dahua cameras from Andy, as recommended on this site, and his service was exemplary. I had them in just a few days, coming all the way from Hong Kong. Excellent! I'll be buying more from him to replace the Reolinks as I get the time. I suspect that once I get the first two replaced, seeing the difference will motivate me to replace the other two immediately.
I hope that was helpful.
