Your Buying Guide for the Best Dash Cams in 2018
Dash cams record video while you’re driving so you have evidence if anything happens. Footage from dash cams is now accepted by some insurers to settle who was at fault in an accident and it’s also admissible in court. Here’s what to look out for so you can spend your money wisely.
Some dash cams can also double as an action camera. Halfords charges £30 for dash cam fitting, but it’s very easy to do it yourself.
How much do I need to spend?
Prices range from around £20 to £200, so there’s a model affordable for everyone. However, those cheapest models tend to have poor-quality lenses, and record low-resolution video which is unlikely to be good enough to allow you to read number plates and signs.
Just watch some of the UK dash cam compilation clips on YouTube to get an idea of how picture quality varies.
Sometimes paying more is a good idea, especially if it means you can make out the registration plate of the car that crashed into you and drove off. You can get a decent dash cam with GPS for around £70-100, but you’ll pay more if you want extra features, and even more if you want a rear camera as well as front.
What about insurance discounts?
Some insurance companies offer discounts if you have a dash cam. For example, Adrian Flux offers a 15 percent discount if you have one of the cameras listed on its website. AXA and Swiftcover also offer discounts. New insurer Sure Thing! offers 20 percent, and for young drivers, MyFirst Insurance has a specific dash cam policy in association with Nextbase which gives you a 30 percent discount.
Since some insurers have a limited list of cameras, it’s important to get one of those. However, if you change insurers regularly, it isn’t worth paying more for a camera on one insurer’s list. In general, Nextbase cameras are the most widely supported in the UK.
Which features should I look for?
Most models come with a small battery that allows it to finish saving a file when you turn off the ignition. It can also run for a few minutes so you can take photos as more evidence if you have a collision.
Here are other things to look for:
GPS
GPS means your location as well as your speed is recorded. The GPS data syncs up with the video clips when played back in software bundled with the dash cam so you can watch the footage and see your location on a map. If you’re using your phone as a GPS, check out our round up of the best phone car mounts and holders.
G-sensor
The G-sensor detects impacts and – usually – locks the recorded video to prevent it being deleted. All dedicated dash cams have one, but action cameras generally don’t.
Parking mode
This may use the g-sensor, but is specifically for recording impacts (or movement) when your car is parked. It doesn’t guarantee you will see what happened, which is why it can be an advantage to have two dash cams, with the second facing out of the back window.
Hard wiring
Also, most manufacturers don’t recommend leaving the camera turned on when parked as it can drain the battery. Plus, many cars cut power to the accessory socket when you turn off the ignition, so you may need to get the camera hard-wired by a professional to use this feature.
Hardwire kits can be installed to give the camera power all the time, or in cars whose 12V socket remains on when you turn off the ignition. The latter is handy as it means the camera can’t drain the car’s battery if you accidentally leave it plugged in.
Do I need Wi-Fi?
Cameras with Wi-Fi usually allow you to install an app and view recordings from your phone or tablet. This can be useful, especially if it lets you download recordings. However, transferring video over Wi-Fi can be painfully slow, and the videos trapped within the app and not easily sharable.
Often, it’s much easier to remove the microSD card (or even the dash cam from the car) and transfer the files to a laptop or PC. Either way, you’ll see much more detail than if you review footage on the small, low-resolution screens on the dash cams themselves.
Will I need an SD card?
Most cameras don’t include any storage, so you’ll need to buy some. Here are the best microSD cards to buy.
Many dash cams are limited to 32GB cards because they don’t support SDXC, so check before buying a larger card. With most cameras, a 32GB card will be enough for about 4-5 hours of footage.
Accessories
Accessories vary between dash cams, but you can expect a fairly long power cable which is designed to be routed around your windscreen and down to your 12V socket. It’s a shame that manufacturers don’t provide a long USB cable instead, as you’d then be able to use a 12V USB adaptor with multiple USB outputs.
If you use the included cable, you won’t be able to use your 12V socket for anything else, such as charging your phone.
Best dash cams 2018 UK – best dash cam reviews
Nextbase 312GW
- RRP: £99.99
The Nextbase 312GW is an excellent all-round dash cam. It offers great-quality footage during the day, is easy to use and has a convenient magnetic mount that allows you to quickly remove and replace the camera without unplugging cables.
It has GPS, and is very easy to install: all the options are preset so it’s as simple as mounting it on the windscreen and plugging it in.
As long as you don’t want your video recorded at 60 frames per second (it supports 30fps at full HD, which is fine), it’s the best choice for most people unless you are on a more limited budget.
Yi Dash Cam Ultra
- RRP: US$99.99
It’s a bit bulky and doesn’t have GPS or a quick-release mount, but Yi’s Dash Cam Ultra is still a good choice.
It comes with a 16GB microSD card, both suction and adhesive mounts and records at up to 2688×1520 pixels – a resolution of 2.7K. At lower resolutions such as 1080p it can record at 60 frames per second but it’s 30fps at the top resolution.
In daylight, quality is very good indeed, with bright and detailed images that let you see the registration plates of parked and passing cars, as well as those in front. The field of view is wide, but not so wide that cars in front become tiny blobs.
At night, quality is a lot worse, but no dash cam lives up to claims that you can still see every last detail in low light.
The app for iOS and Android is great. It connects easily to the dash cam and lets you watch low-resolution clips as well as selecting and downloading only the portion of the full-quality clip that you need in the event of an accident. It works quickly and reliably.
Usefully, a long microUSB cable is supplied with a twin USB adapter so you can still charge a phone from your 12V accessory socket even with the dash cam connected.
Nextbase 412GW
- RRP: £129.99
Not to be mistaken for the 312GW above, the 412GW is £30 more expensive, but records video at 2560×1440 pixels – also known as Quad HD. It will also record in full HD (1920×1080) at 60fps, unlike the cheaper model.
It has GPS and Wi-Fi, just like the 312GW, and the same convenient magnetic mount. In the box, though, you get two mounts: one adhesive and one suction, so you could swap the camera easily between two cars.
Video quality is excellent during the day (slightly more detail than the 312GW), but there’s little between the two dash cams at night. Both are great choices.
Nextbase 512GW
- RRP: £149.99
The Nextbase 512GW is very good, but it’s also more expensive than the company’s 312GW and 412GW. You get more features, though: a polariser to reduce reflections, an automatic parking mode and a connector for attaching a rear camera (which Nextbase doesn’t sell yet).
If you can afford it, it won’t disappoint.
Mio MiVue 618
- RRP: £89.99
Overall the MiVue 618 is well designed, easy to use and has some useful features, especially speed camera warnings. The mount is nice and small, but it can obscure the power socket with some USB cables, which is the only niggle.
Image quality isn’t the best, but unless you plan to use the footage for home movies, it doesn’t really matter: you can see the detail that’s important if you’re involved in a collision.
DDPai X2 Pro
- RRP: US$299
The X2 Pro has no screen and just one button, so installation is really easy. It comes with a rear camera on a long wire which records the view out of the back, too.
You also get a wireless button for taking photos should you see something that’s worth capturing, and the app is one of the best we’ve seen for downloading videos and photos to your phone for sharing.
It’s expensive, though, and if your car has two accessory sockets you might be better off buying two separate dash cams.
Asus Reco Classic
- RRP: US$99.99
The Reco Classic is a great dash cam which records very good quality video both during the day and at night. It’s not the cheapest, but it’s good value considering it includes GPS.
It doesn’t have Wi-Fi, but that’s really not an issue: it’s quicker to copy videos directly to your PC via a USB cable.
In some countries it will also warn you of speed camera locations using GPS location.
JooVuu X
- RRP: £69.99
As a dash cam, the JooVuu X does a great job, and is good value considering it has both GPS and Wi-Fi and can be used as an action cam thanks to a ‘proper’ battery.
The lack of even a small status LCD screen is a shame, but it’s not a dealbreaker. Image quality is impressive and the timed mode switching is a real bonus. This automatically switches between 60 frames per second during the day to 30 frames per second at night.
As an action cam, it benefits from being tiny and light but really needs a case to protect it (and you can’t buy one). The fact that swapping in a replacement battery requires a screwdriver means it’s not as convenient as something like the SJCam SJ5000X.
Nextbase 112
- RRP: £49.99
The 112 is Nextbase’s replacement for the 102. This sub-£50 dash cam uses the same magnetic quick-release mount as the 412GW, so it’s really convenient to remove from the car to transfer video files or even take a few photos on battery power if you’re in a collision. You can buy it from Halfords for £40 at the moment.
It’s the only dash cam here which records at a lowly 1280×720 pixels, and there is certainly less detail. However, the 120-degree lens means it is much easier to read number plates of oncoming cars as they’re physically larger in the resulting video. Quality is acceptable during the day, with most registrations visible when you pause the video.
But you’ll be lucky to capture any registrations at night as detail levels really do drop off. However, you should still be able to prove what happened if an incident happens in front of you, even if you can’t pick out the registration.
There are no frills, such as Wi-Fi or GPS, nor can you review any footage or photos on the 2in screen. But the 112 is nice and compact and has easy-to-use buttons and menus.
We’d recommend paying more for a 1080p dash cam, but if you have a limited budget, this is the one to get.
SJCAM SJ5000X Elite
- RRP: $140
It’s not for everyone, but if you don’t need or want GPS and you’d prefer a camera that can be used as an action camera as well as recording car journeys, it’s very good value indeed. It’s disappointing that it doesn’t record true 4K, but you’d have to spend considerably more to get that.
Vantrue X1
- RRP: £89.99
Vantrue sells a range of dash cams on Amazon, and the X1 is the latest. It records video with audio at up to 1080p at 30fps.
On the back is a 2.7in LCD, but the buttons are all on the top and left edges. The left-hand ones are marked, but not the top ones, which makes it hard to operate the menus. We also found that when the battery runs flat, it loses the time and date so you have to set it again. Since there’s no GPS, it won’t get this information automatically.
Image quality isn’t quite as sharp as we’d like from a 1080p camera, and the wide 170 degree lens means registrations of oncoming cars can be difficult to read if they’re at the edge of the image. At night, quality isn’t bad but – as with all dash cams – you have to be lucky (or very close) to read the number plate of another vehicle.
It’s easy to put the X1 into parking mode by holding down the bottom-left button (which doubles as a file-lock button) but Vantrue recommends using a USB battery to power the camera or use a hardwire kit. The main benefit is that the X1 supports microSD cards up to 64GB, so it can store twice as much footage as most dash cams.
Source: techadvisor.co.uk