Many of us hadn’t heard of a dash cam until a few years back, when our news channels and social media were flooded with dash cam footage of the Chelyabinsk Meteor in Russia.
Dash cams were already popular in Russia as a protection against police corruption and insurance fraud, and have since become popular in the UK and elsewhere, due largely to their effectiveness in settling legal disputes.
There are lots of ways to approach buying a dash cam. You might be thinking of which added features you require, how the camera will look on your windscreen, and how much it’ll cost you.
These are all valid considerations – but what matters most of all is the clarity of footage you can capture, and how safely you can depend on the camera to capture it. The more detail you can record, from people’s faces to number plates, the stronger your evidence will be in the event of an incident.
Another point to bear in mind is the method of delivering files from the dash cam to another device or a digital location. We tend to find Wi-fi the most convenient way to do this – but many off you will be perfectly happy to use an SD card reader instead. Speaking of which, these devices tend not to come equipped with the necessary SD card. Be sure to order a compatible card alongside the cam if that’s the case.
Nextbase – 612GW Elite
Best for: Top quality where it counts
Recording resolution: up to 4k
Wi-fi: Yes
Touch-screen: Yes
As its name would suggest, the 612GW Elite is a truly top-of-the-range dash cam, offering superb ease-of-use, wi-fi connectivity and 4k video quality. We found it one of the easiest dash cams to set up and learn to operate, and perhaps the best of all in terms of the footage produced.
The 612GW Elite is of excellent construction, with a brushed aluminium finish and touchscreen controls. It has some nifty supplementary features, too, including GPS journey data visualisation via Google Maps, and a time lapse setting enabling you to make a short video of your trip. If you’re willing to spend a little extra for a top-drawer camera, we’d urge you to buy this one.
£179 | Currys | Buy it now
Binatone – DC200
Best for: basic performance for under £50
Recording resolution: up to 720p
Wi-fi: No
Touch-screen: No
Considering the fact some driving insurers will offer you a discount if you use a dash cam, it’d be folly not to purchase the bargain-priced Binatone DC200.
Although it’s more basic and records at a lower quality than the other dash cams we’ve tested, you can count on the DC200 to capture reliable footage with minimal setup. We were impressed with its clear display and easy-to-use on-screen playback.
Our one criticism of this camera would be that it’s not quite so intuitive to operate – but that’s a problem quickly solved through brief consultation with the manual.
£39.99 | Argos | Buy it now
Nextbase – Duo HD TwinCam
Best for: Filming to the front and rear with a single device
Recording resolution: 1080p
Wi-fi: Yes
Touch-screen: No
Given the possibility of incidents occurring behind your vehicle, it seems remiss that so many dash cams only record what’s going on in-front.
Nextbase have solved this issue by building two lenses into a single camera: a long-distance lens to point backwards, and a wide-angle lens to point ahead.
Located on either side of the device, they lend the TwinCam a somewhat chameleon-like appearance. It’s a fun design to play about with during setup – and a potentially vital one in terms of the footage you’ll capture, with both cameras recording in up to 1080p.
One quirk of this camera is that SD cards tend to pop out of it with extreme force – so take care when removing yours.
The TwinCam’s mount allows you to swivel it and find the perfect angle – a useful feature missing in some earlier Nextbase cameras, but present in the Duo HD TwinCam and 612GW Elite.
£148.95 | Amazon | Buy it now
Mio – Mivue 766
Best for: Brilliant design at a reasonable price
Recording resolution: up to 1080p
Wi-fi: Yes
Touch-screen: Yes
Like much of our favourite tech, the Mivue 766 is fabulously easy to use, yet rich in functionality. The touchscreen options are clear and easily navigable, from manually triggering Record to fine controls like movement detection method and information on the GPS satellites currently being used to track your location.
There’s only one button besides the touch-screen – a bright orange one that triggers emergency recording. We see this as an eminently sensible design choice that would give the driver exactly the immediacy of access they’d need in an emergency. If you’ve got around £100 to spend on a dash cam, this is the best one you’ll find.
£131.99 | Amazon | Buy it now
Ezviz – S2 Action Camera
Best for: use on the road and beyond
Recording resolution: up to 1080p
Wi-fi: No
Touch-screen: Yes
The Ezviz S2 is one of those products that seems like such a good idea, it’s hard to imagine why it hasn’t been done sooner. Far from just a dash cam, it’s also a GoPro-style action cam complete with durable hardware, ready to capture all your out-of-car adventures. Why buy one camera for each use, when this one plays both roles admirably?
Sure, it may not have as many dedicated driving features as some competitors, but the S2 does the one thing it really needs to particularly well: it reliably captures clear footage.
To use the S2 as a dash cam, activate driving mode with a single swipe down and a tap, attach it to your windscreen with a sucker mount (sold separately), and plug into your ignition with a car charger (also sold separately). It’ll start recording as soon as you turn the engine on, and won’t stop till the car does.
£66.42 | Amazon | Buy it now
BlackVue – DR900S-2CH 4K UHD
Best for: a premium solution for filming front and rear
Recording resolution: up to 4k (front camera) / up to 1080p (rear camera)
Wi-fi: Yes
Touch-screen: No (some gestural controls)
BlackVue’s highly regarded DR900S-2CH dash cam consists of a front and a rear camera, both mounted with an adhesive patch and connected via a cable running the length of the vehicle.
Much about the DR900S-2CH stands out from the crowd. We really like the method for angling the lens, by simply turning the body of the camera within its bracket. The MicroSD reader, which comes included, is particularly easy to use, and the quality of footage captured is second to none (the NextBase 612GW is the only other camera featured in this article that’s on-par with it).
There’s not much you can do to control the DR900S-2CH on the go, with no touch screen and only a few in-built controls at your disposal. It does, however, offer the best functionality outside of the car, with excellent options to play back and edit footage via BlackVue’s cloud-based app (Android/iOS), or the BlackVue Viewer computer software.
£499 | Amazon | Buy it now
Garmin – Dash Cam 55
Best for: a stylish addition to your car interior
Recording resolution: up to 1440p
Wi-fi: Yes
Touch-screen: No
Garmin’s Dash Cam 55 is a small and stylish dash cam with a host of appealing features. Besides recording in 1440p, it offers voice control, smartphone pairing, and options to display warnings when you’re at risk of colliding with the vehicle in-front or drifting out of your lane.
Aesthetes take note: in our view, this is the best-looking camera we’ve reviewed (there’s no reason why a safety-focused product shouldn’t look great, so long as it’s doing its job!)
£94 | Amazon | Buy it now *On sale now
Verdict:
Above all, the 612GW Elite offers the most efficient and affordable route to capturing footage of the very highest quality – and that’s why we’ve made it our ES Best Pick. For a great option that costs considerably less, you might also consider the Mio MiVue 766.
