i think we've all watched those dash cam videos where someone gets caught doing
something super dumb and thought how could you prove that just happened
and you weren't the one being dumb if you didn't have a dash cam
the answer is you probably couldn't but
there are a lot of terra bad dash cams out there and it's hard to tell the good
ones from the bad so i took it upon myself to create this video showing off
six of the most popular models out there because i know you guys love my videos
so much
there are two main kinds of setups single camera and dual camera single
camera is pretty self-explanatory most people mount it facing forward but the
second camera in the dual system can be deployed in a couple of different ways
depending on your needs a cabbie for example might be less concerned about
capturing a rear ender versus a destructive passenger in the back seat
we'll start with the cheapest of our single camera contenders the g1w comes
in at around 50 dollars depending on which company rebadged it it has a
surprisingly good picture and that's pretty much all it has going
for it like any generic chinese electronics product the menu system is
kinda bad so the translation isn't great the menu's navigation is bad and you
just have to hope that the settings stick and that they do what they say
they do so in fairness there aren't that many things you can change anyway
it's ugly and kind of sticks out so if you live in the kind of neighborhood
where someone might walk by and go hey that looks like something i should steal
you might not have it for very long if you leave it mounted all the time but as
long as you use the suction cup instead of the janky quick release to take it
down it's 140 degree horizontal fov and
decent night quality make it a good buy personally though i'd spend another 15
bucks on the skyview a118 it's footage looks as good as the g1ws but it's got a
wider field of view a better quick release system though it would benefit
from an upgrade to the adhesive and it's much more compact and selfie so you
probably won't have to take it down anyway these little upgrades might not seem
like much but they feel like the difference between a real dash cam and a
webcam that you stick onto your windshield which might seem confusing
when you see my pick for our premium single cam the xiaomi yi dash cam my
theory as to why it looks so much like an action cam is that they basically
recycle the yi action cam when they realize people were already using it as
a dash cam the good news is that thanks to this heritage the picture from the yi
dash cam is great it's sharp enough to read license plates during the day and
at night things are pretty clear as long as there's some street lighting it's got
the highest resolution of anything we tested at 1296p and there's more good
stuff too the user interface for setting everything up is also the best of the
dashcam so far it's clean it's attractive and it's responsive you can
even do this via wi-fi on your phone and that is similarly responsive and quick
to connect unfortunately the form factor makes it incredibly easy to spot from
the outside and the premium look as much as i might like it
makes it an even more attractive target for would-be thieves
thankfully it does have a good quick release system but at this price point i
think xiaomi should have considered this and designed a more subtle housing
form factory criticism aside though the yi dash cam is a great package that
feels like a piece of modern consumer electronics while everything else feels
like it was designed by an accountant in 2010 the dual channel systems could
learn a thing or two from xiaomi in spite of their much higher prices all
suffered from lesser image quality overall and clunkier Wi-Fi connectivity
which is an even bigger problem since none of them have screens or menus built
in so then why would you buy a dual channel system instead of a couple of
these well it's easier to set up one camera than two separately they can
record to a single sd card you can adjust the g sensor sensitivities for
different directions of movement while driving and there's parking mode which
allows the cameras to record vandalism or hit and runs first up is the blacksis
camsys its image quality is unexceptional and its form factor might
not be super stylish but it's subtle enough to blend in the main benefit
though is its parking mode the app may not be pretty but it allows a number of
key variables to be tweaked like tuning the motion detection in certain parts of
the frame or turning one of the cameras off together all of these things are
important because for parking mode to work it needs to be wired into your car
battery and the more they're recording the faster that will drain
fortunately blaxis includes a low voltage cutoff that will prevent your
battery from dying outright making this kit popular among tinkerers and people
who park on the street often the same can't be said of the blackvue dr-650gw
2-channel it does have a basic parking mode with tunable motion settings and
shock sensitivities as you'd expect but you'll need an add-on kit from the
manufacturer to protect your battery so
why would you choose this one well
it looks really cool i mean physically
not the image quality which i would describe as good enough in spite of the
720p rear cam i mean if you think about it if you get rear-ended they're gonna
get pretty close to your camera anyway right overall there's not much to set the
black view apart from the pack their cloud backup solution won't really make
much sense until mobile data is a lot cheaper which brings us to the thinkware
f770 it's it's not cheaper but i like
this one the most it doesn't have as many settings as the black system you
can fiddle with for parking mode and it's not as cool looking and compact as
the black view but the image quality at night is the best of the dual channel
systems with 1080p recording on both front and rear cams you get voltage cut
off built in like the black sys and though the parking mode configuration
options aren't as detailed i think they struck the best balance between
tunability and simplicity it has the biggest footprint on your windshield but
by staying more flush to the windshield it ended up being more discreet the
thinkware also features recording to built-in flash memory for emergencies in
case your sd card fails somehow and the feature i like the most
it warns you of red light cameras not that i run red lights all that often
this is done with the built-in gps and the locations can be updated by
downloading them from their site so conclusion time
some of the dash cams feature additional driver safety systems like lane
departure and collision warning but they're all inaccurate inconsistent
and in the case of the yi dash cam really annoying keep a safe distance
please none of them are anywhere near as accurate as my car's built-in systems
and frankly i wouldn't recommend buying them for these features for a basic
single cam the g1w is fine if you're looking to spend as little as possible
but the a118 gets my pick due to the form factor as for the dual cams the
image quality on the f77a thinkware and its red light warning helped justify its
price but at the end of the day the black sys camsys offers the best
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LTT thanks for watching guys if this video
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