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buying a car is a major decision and you'll want to do everything you can to

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protect your investment oh oh god oh

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what the that guy just hit me good thing

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I caught his license plate on one of my uh many trusty dash cams this one's kind

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of crap this one too well surely my

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expensive one will no come on it's

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unusable what the heck is going on here

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I spent over a th000 us on a dozen of

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the top rated dash cams on Amazon and almost every single one sucks to the

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point of being basically unusable how did this happen I did my homework I got

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the most recommended I got the highest rated units I thought I picked up

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something reliable why aren't these things decent like our sponsor build

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Redux build Redux makes it easy to configure your new build with support

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guns to help along the way they also offer for competitive pricing as

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compared to building a PC yourself so head to build ru.com Linus and start

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your new build today this video started over three years ago when my wife came

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across some hilarious examples of blatant insurance fraud that was

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prevented by dash cam footage she asked me to get some dash cams for our cars no

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problem said I and I headed over to Amazon where to my surprise nearly

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everything was obscenely priced full of

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misleading specs covered in obviously paid reviews or sometimes all three long

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story short I settled on a cheap and cheerful unit with decent reviews and

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bought two of them not one of which even managed to power on so I gave up then

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one of our new writers overheard me recounting this story and went I can

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look into that I need a dash cam too and 2 weeks later we've learned a lot to

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start with the dash cam Market is still not as straightforward as one might hope

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marketing materials for cheaper dash cams can be confusing using and

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contradictory and their performance it's basically impossible to compare without

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trying them side by side in the real world dash cams take all the issues of

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reviewing a regular camera and they add on a ton of extra usability features

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that need to be evaluated parking mode discreetness loop recording gravity

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sensors even the length of the cable matters too long and you've got an

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unsightly coil of wire to hide too short and it could be a challenge to reach

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your power source it's a lot to take in the good news is that that if all you

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want is proof of fault or lack thereof in the event of an accident it's still

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pretty hard to go wrong our value pick is the thinkware f70 it's pretty Bare

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Bones in terms of features lacking Creature Comforts like GPS data or even

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a screen for that matter but it is a dead simple to set up since it doesn't

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need to be paired to an app the included 3M mounting tape is quite permanent and

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while it won't be winning any awards for image quality we were able to clearly

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identify the vehicles and people in our our footage and we could even make out

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license plates at least on stationary cars that's pretty okay especially for

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just $70 but there were situations where it

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left us wanting a bit more now our Target price was under $100 and we ended

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up with a wide range of features and image quality so let's make our way

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through the rest of them from cheapest to most expensive this is the a20 from

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bayun a brand with no website but they

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do have the lucky number eight spot in the Amazon bests Sellers List you might

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not expect much for $60 and if that's the case boy are you ever a Savvy

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Shopper image quality during the late hours of the day is lacking and at night

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is so bad that you'd think you were filming on a potato making matters worse

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the screen doesn't automatically dim so you'll be constantly vibrantly reminded

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of how little useful information your camera is capturing the bt13 comes in at

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$10 more ranks number six on Amazon and

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and just like the Bon it comes courtesy of a mystery meat brand with no website

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this time called chow it's not that hard to have a website guys I've got one it's

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full of great deals like these $9 mystery cable ties LTT Store.com

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daylight quality is grainier than the a20 for sure but text is actually

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slightly easier to read indicating that Chow might be using a better sensor but

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what they aren't doing is much in the way of postprocessing to enhance the

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image quality and this is a especially Apparent at night where the a20 actually

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looks somewhat decent in comparison also

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like the B own the screen stays on by default annoying but one interesting

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feature it has at least is that the rear camera input is mini HDMI so if you

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wanted to use a decent camera for your rear view the chort toow could act as

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your screen and save your backups otherwise we stand by our recommendation

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of the thinkware f70 at this price and at $80 for that matter these two chuny

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boys didn't make it into our side-by-side tests due to their

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considerable bulk both have cabin facing cameras though so realistically they're

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designed more for an Uber driver audience anyway the T1 comes from eway

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the first manufacturer with an actual website and in broad daylight driving

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away from the Sun like ideal conditions

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it can't seem to make out the words on many road signs let alone other

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important details not a good showing for the second highest rated unit with a C

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camera chunker number two is the d3h from Provo they claim it's a 4k camera

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which if true could be a really great value but out of the box the metadata

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for the files clearly reads 1080p with

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that aside in the daylight it can read signs which is an improvement over the

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Bon and the eway but license plates are

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still elusive unless at a complete stop and positioned just right one cool

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feature though is that it uses capacitors instead of lithium batteries

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unlike the rest of the cameras we've talked about already this is a nice to

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have because lithium batteries especially when subjected to heat and

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when they're constantly fully charged wear out more quickly which can lead to

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battery swelling and in extreme cases fire let's step up our budget surely for

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$100 this sponsored listing for the rexing V1 4K will be a good choice right

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I mean it has 4K right in the name right and Forbes named it the best dash cam

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for a tighter budget of 2022 let's see how that's

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going actually not too bad Forbes

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looking at the videos from around dusk it is slightly clearer than our $70 f70

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but only slightly field of view colors

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ability to make out text all of that is pretty much the same which means that

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unless you really need the screen it doesn't feel worth spending 43% more

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maybe Garmin can change my mind they used to be very well known for their GPS

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offerings their compact dash cam Mini 2 was a little out of our price range at

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$110 but hey what's 10 extra bucks for

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the much better brand name one right

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well not right but at least not wrong it

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performs about as well as the V1 4K maybe a bit better or worse depending on

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the circumstances and it has some nice features available but those features

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require an app and that app requires an account and that account requires you to

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give Garmin your information which is super now surely the number one

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pick on Amazon is going to ride in and save the day right at $120 it is now

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firmly beyond our original price Target but what's another 10 bucks if it's a

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lot better right here we

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go really at dusk the RO R2 4K manages

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to capture less detailed than our budget

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f70 and at night it's more of the same

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signs are readable sometimes if you're

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lucky but there is one last hope it's

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the darling of budget dash cam stands across the internet and it happens to

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nail our $100 budget exactly it boasts

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true 1440p recording with easy and secure mounting and comes from a

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manufacturer that accepts Community feedback and maintains their products

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through firmware updates it's even popular enough to get into the top 20 on

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Amazon and it's the viofo a19 V 3 all of

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which sounds great but what about the image

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quality I mean In fairness it is the

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best we've seen so far especially when it comes to the finer details and it's

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$20 cheaper than some of the competition but I can't help but be a little

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disappointed it just feels like no matter which brand we buy and no matter

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how much we spend we're ending up with pretty much the same crappy image even

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from our best camera so let's do something I wouldn't actually recommend

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and completely blow our budget these are

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the black View Dr 750x plus and the

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thinkware u1000 the Dr 750x is black

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View's second most expensive one-channel dash cam at

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$270 it has dualband Wi-Fi a back illuminated image sensor with enhanced

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night vision and support for LTE cloud storage backup and the thinkware u1000

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will that's think weare's Flagship device the best of the best 150° viewing

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angle 1440p 60 FPS recording Geo fencing

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with push notifications red light camera detection and picture quality that oh

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come on the black view is as bad as the crappy Chinese cameras and the u1000 is

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barely better than the a19 V3 if at all

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does have some Creature Comforts I mean I guess it's nice that it tells me when

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there's a red light camera coming up ahead red light in 200 M so that I can

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stop at it instead of just blowing through like I normally would I mean

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this thing's going to pay for itself in save traffic tickets and the Geo fencing

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feature okay that legitimately could come in handy once my kids are old

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enough to drive and maybe black View's cloud storage would come in handy in

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case the camera got destroyed in a crash

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but at more than double up to quadruple the prices of these other options I am

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frankly blown away that there's anything

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but a colossal Improvement in the

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quality of capturing video out the front of my windshield you know the entire

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purpose of these devices what is going

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on here I mean if I were to put a $400

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GoPro in my car instead of one of these cameras it would look amazing how are

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these all so bad well here's a hint you

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might see nine dash cams attached to

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this car you know what I see two dash cams in n n different plastic shelves

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listen to these startup

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Chimes video mode please insert micro SD

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card look at these default folder structures heck even just look at the

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rear cameras that come with some of these notice any similarities the thing

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is there are hundreds if not thousands of dash cam Brands but there are only a

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handful of companies that actually manufacture the two most important

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components the S so and the simos image

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sensor in s so's the major player is

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Taiwanese fabulous semiconductor manufacturer novitech not to be confused

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with the Russian Natural Gas Corporation of the same name their bread and butter

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is LCD controllers for companies like ASUS or Sony but on the side they also

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make camera s so's like the nt96650

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with the numbering scheme not easily obtainable by the general public it's

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hard to tell ex exactly what the specs of these chips are or when they were

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designed but from what we could glean online the

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96660 was built sometime around or before

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2017 and the last two digits appear to be the series end iteration so of our 10

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dash cams in that near $100 range eight

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of them were using novatech S so's and vopo was one of the few examples we

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could find of any camera using an S so where the second to last digit was

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higher than six meaning most of them are using 5-year-old technology at best

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identifying a novatech system is fairly easy they often have the same startup

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sounds video mode or use the default backup cameras or even have folder

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structures that include the name novatech other manufacturers of s so's

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include High silicon from Huawei think wear's manufacturer of choice amorella

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and the Very infrequently used all winner in our limited searches we could

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not seem to find thec manufacturers for black view or for Garmin products though

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it's fairly likely that they're using one of these three as for seos image

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sensors nearly every company uses Sony starvis a subcategory of their xmore

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sensors xmor are used in nearly everything from phone cameras in Apple

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and Samsung phones alike to high-end consumer cameras to the lowest end

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webcams and the starvest line is the type that is specifically designed for

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security cameras and other similar applications that require decent low

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light performance the most common sensor to find in dash cams right now is the

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IMX 335 it's a perfectly fine sensor

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actually capable of 1440p video with a reasonable enough level of clarity even

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in low light the Rove and the vopo both

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use this sensor so then you would think they would have the same image quality

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right clearly there's a difference though what it could be is something to

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do with Rove using its limited processing power to upscale the image to

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4K or it could have to do with the Road using an

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nt96650 for the several hundred more that you

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would pay for the thinkware u1000 you're getting a starvis IMX 334 which appears

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to be the next level up from the 335 totally intuitive but the difference as

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far as we've been able to see isn't that great if I could put it in PC Gamer

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terms it's kind of like upgrading your graphics card from a 3070 to a 3070 TI

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but for double or triple the price there are a few other sensor manufacturers

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like omnivision or Galaxy Core but these are only used occasionally and image

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quality at least going by the other reviews doesn't seem to be a huge

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Improvement there either one great thing about Sony being the Big Kahuna and

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image sensors is that they're pretty open with their data sheets so if you

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know what image sensor a camera uses you can at least find some basic information

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on it but that's only going to take you so far without having information on the

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so or probably more important ly the

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software algorithms that will be running to process the raw image the biggest

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takeaway here then is that no matter which dash cam you choose there is kind

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of this hard limit on image quality that can be achieved at the moment and some

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of the low-end models they're already pretty close to that limit so you're

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either going to be settling for good enough or as we suggested before you

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could throw a GoPro up on your windshield with all the associated inconvenience that comes with that did I

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remember to roll it and the problem is I doubt that this is going to change any

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time soon because the top Dash camam companies seem to be more interested in

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adding features like the ability to string five cameras together or let you

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review your footage with full gyroscopic readouts rather than actually making a

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camera that can read a bloody license plate 10 ft in front of you so if you're

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in the market for a dash cam ignore the Amazon reviews f70 for the budget

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shoppers out there and viofo a19 V3 for

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pretty much everyone else their video quality isn't nearly as far off the top

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of the line as you would think and neither of them is going to put you at

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Major risk of having your window smashed to steal your dash cam if you want to

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add a rear cam as well the a129 Plus or similar offerings from bofo will allow

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you to do that as well also without breaking the bank now let's break our

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bank where our sponsor puts money

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Linus if you enjoyed this video our first dasham video is a treat you can

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watch Luke threaten me with wait is that a crowbar no it's an ice scraper I think

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I'll be all right what the heck is going on here stop forward as one might

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hope you what the cuz it's and

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everything is the included 3M Mount keep

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doing it definition of insanity right here we go boys