While driving, I’ve found that dash cams are a great way to deal with the unpredictable road. We all know that driving can be unpredictable and even dangerous. It’s not always easy to tell if other drivers are paying attention or not. You don’t want to get into an accident and have someone try to blame you. Based on my own experience, a dash cam has been very helpful in these situations. The footage from the dash cam can be used as a neutral witness whether you were at fault or not.
Of course, you can also use it to capture all those moments that can help you with insurance claims, such as burglaries or accidents. Dashcams are rapidly evolving. A simple, front-facing dashcam provides a basic level of safety and is far better than no protection at all. However, while basic dashcams only cover the front of a vehicle and show the view through the windshield, some are available in combination with a second, rear-facing camera that also records what’s happening behind the vehicle, either as an alternative kit or as an upgrade.
The best dashcams record what’s happening on the road ahead while you’re driving, but many can do much more. Some offer driving aids that warn you if you’re drifting out of your lane or driving too close to a vehicle ahead, and some can even notify emergency services of your location in the event of an accident. Below we have mentioned the best dash cams.
Best Dash Cams
Dash Cam Model | Resolution | Field of View | Night Vision | GPS | Wi-Fi | Parking Mode | Screen Size |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Miofive Car Dash Cam | 1080p | 150 degrees | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 2.0″ |
Thinkware Q800 Pro | 2K | 140 degrees | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2.7″ |
Garmin Dash Cam 57 | 1440p | 140 degrees | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2.0″ |
Vantrue S1 Dash Cam | 1080p | 170 degrees | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 2.5″ |
Kenwood DRV-A301W | 1440p | 160 degrees | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 3.0″ |
Car & Driver Touch Duo | 1080p | 160 degrees | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2.7″ |
Viofo A129 Pro Duo | 4K | 140 degrees | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 2.0″ |
Nextbase 622GW | 4K | 140 degrees | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 3.0″ |
Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2 | 1080p | 140 degrees | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | N/A |
Cobra SC 400D | 2K | 160 degrees | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 2.0″ |
Miofive Car Dash Cam
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 1080p Full HD |
Field of View | 140 degrees |
Display | 2.0-inch LCD screen |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 128GB) |
This 4K dashcam is well-designed, feels high-quality, has a good smartphone app, and records 4K video through a 140-degree lens. It has 64GB of built-in storage and fast 5GHz Wi-Fi for transferring footage to your smartphone.
Along with a simple, discreet windshield mount and parking mode with an optional hardwire kit, the Miofive has everything most drivers will ever need. When a new company launches its first product via a Kickstarter campaign, and then that product does so well, that’s quite an accomplishment.
Thinkware Q800 Pro
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 2K Ultra HD (1440p) |
Field of View | 140 degrees |
Display | 2.7-inch LCD screen |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 128GB) |
It’s a well-designed dashcam that has a high-quality feel, delivers great video, and offers a wide range of features. Those who just want a basic dashcam should look elsewhere and save some money. However, drivers who appreciate the Q800 Pro’s safety and assistance systems will benefit from the extra money.
The software isn’t great, but that’s by and large the norm for dashcams, and the Q800 Pro makes up for that shortcoming with a decent design and top-notch video quality. It’s not 4K, but the video quality is still very good, so that doesn’t really matter in our opinion.
Garmin Dash Cam 57
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 1440p |
Field of View | 140 degrees |
Display | 2.0-inch LCD screen |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 256GB) |
If you’re looking for solid features at a less nerve-wracking price, Garmin’s Dash Cam 57 is for you. It has all the usual dash cam features, plus a few more to enhance your recording capabilities and add value to your car. If you don’t have a newer car with driver assistance features, the Garmin 57 is for you.
It has a number of safety features, such as collision warnings, lane departure warnings, and alerts when you’re approaching a traffic light or speed camera. It also tells you when you’re too absent-minded to notice that traffic has started moving.
Vantrue S1 Dash Cam
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 2.5K Super HD (1440p) |
Field of View | 170 degrees |
Display | 2.5-inch LCD screen |
GPS | No |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 256GB) |
While far from perfect, the Vantrue S1 offers a relatively affordable dual-view dashcam with solid video recording capabilities. Daytime video is clear and detailed, with no color issues, and while nighttime footage is blurrier, it’s quite commendable.
While there are a few things we would change about the Vantrue S1, including certain design features and the lack of more advanced features, all the important things are there. Solid video and audio, GPS, incident detection, and a 24/7 parking monitor. The menu system is also dead simple to use, with a number of context-sensitive buttons.
Kenwood DRV-A301W
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 1080p Full HD |
Field of View | 135 degrees |
Display | 2.7-inch LCD screen |
GPS | No |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 128GB) |
With its rugged design and up to 1080p resolution, the Kenwood DRV-A31W is the ideal dashcam for your car. It can automatically detect collisions and record footage for safekeeping, and it also features an eye-catching display and built-in GPS to log your speed and location.
Kenwood Dash Cam Manager is one of our favorite dash cam companion apps. You can connect over a local wireless network to view your saved footage and get a live view of what the camera sees on your screen. The recorded videos are also of good quality, even if the audio is sometimes choppy.
Car & Driver Road Patrol Touch Duo
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 1080p Full HD |
Field of View | 140 degrees |
Display | 2.4-inch LCD touchscreen |
GPS | No |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 128GB) |
A solid mid-range model from Car & Driver, with an impressive array of features and an OLED touchscreen – a rare sight in dashcams in general, especially at this price. There’s also flexible camera settings and the ability to capture crisp, clear footage in Full HD resolution.
Some of the features don’t work as well as they could, and the camera itself feels pretty shaky, while the Patrol Touch Duo lacks key features like GPS and Wi-Fi. However, if you need a dual-view camera with solid video quality and all the usual dashcam features, this camera is worth considering.
Viofo A129 Pro Duo
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 4K Ultra HD (2160p) |
Field of View | Front: 130 degrees, Rear: 140 degrees |
Display | No display (requires smartphone connection) |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 256GB) |
The Viofo A129 Pro Duo consists of a 4K UHD main camera with a 130-degree field of view (FOV) and a Sony EXMOR IMX317 sensor, and a 1080p rear camera with a 140-degree field of view (Sony EXMOR IMX291) connected via a long and somewhat thick cable. Both are adjustable only vertically, so careful alignment is required during installation for best results.
Pretty skeptical of the whole 4K UHD dashcam concept, mainly because 2160p videos require nearly 1GB of storage for every three minutes of video. That’s four times the amount needed for 1080p. A 32GB SD card will be used up in less than two hours at that rate, and constant use will wear out the SD card faster, too. Not only that, but my first looks at 2160p videos from other dashcams showed that the 400% increase in storage requirements only results in a slight increase in detail.
Nextbase 622GW Dash Cam
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 4K Ultra HD (2160p) |
Field of View | 140 degrees |
Display | 3.0-inch HD IPS touchscreen |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 128GB) |
The 622GW is a sleek, pewter-black looker. It’s about 3.5 inches wide and 2 inches deep, but a bit heavier than the average dashcam. This gives a sense of quality that so many dashcams lack. The standout physical feature is the 1-inch extruded lens housing. It undoubtedly contributes to the fantastic results of the 140-degree field of view, 4K UHD (3840×2160), 30fps recording system. The polarizing filter is probably not a detriment either.
Although 4K UHD (3860 x2160) will burn SD cards in no time (about four times 1080p), the 622GW’s footage convinced me that it’s worth it if you do it right. The detail in the 4K UHD footage is fantastic, colors are wide and accurate, and motion compensation is top-notch. We could say more, but take a look at the footage below and tell me if you disagree.
Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 1080p Full HD |
Field of View | 140 degrees |
Display | No display |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 256GB) |
Don’t let the size fool you: The Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2 is very powerful for such a small device. It may not have features like a display or GPS, but it delivers great image quality and has voice control in case you need the camera for something while driving.
And like other recent Garmin dash cams, it can make your car smarter with features like rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning, speed camera and traffic light alerts, and more. There’s also Garmin Vault, cloud storage that automatically saves all footage to the cloud for safekeeping.
Cobra SC 400D
Specification | Details |
---|---|
Resolution | 1296p |
Field of View | 160 degrees |
Display | 2.0-inch LCD screen |
GPS | Yes |
Wi-Fi | Yes |
Loop Recording | Yes |
G-Sensor | Yes |
Parking Mode | Yes |
Night Vision | Yes |
Storage | MicroSD card (up to 256GB) |
It’s expensive, yes, but it delivers stunning images 4K for the front, 1080p for the back day and night, has a sharp 3-inch screen, and can be upgraded with a 120-degree indoor still camera. Unusually, the SC 400D is a bright pewter color. Dash cams are usually dark gray or black, and by that I mean almost all of them.
At first glance, we wondered if the bright color might be distracting, but that hasn’t been my experience in actual use. In fact, it might be less distracting than its darker-clad cousins. We did appreciate that the SC 400D is a bit heavier than your average dashcam. It’s still light enough to handle but feels more solid than most other models. The main unit has a semi-permanent adhesive mount that integrates the handheld GPS unit.