Along with offering us with some humorous, scary, and downright bemusing content material, dashcams have develop into a preferred technique to shield one’s automobile and decide fault in an accident. Relying on the place you reside, a car-mounted recorder may even scale back your insurance coverage premium.

However in the case of buying one, issues get slightly trickier. If you happen to’ve ever trawled the online, in search of the best choice to put in, you’ll possible have observed some obvious similarities, contradictory claims, and considerably shady suggestions.

The excellent news, in line with Linus of Linus Tech Ideas, is that it’s nonetheless arduous to go incorrect with a primary dashcam to get the job carried out. Whereas it’s nice to have the ability to select license plates in low mild, the first perform of a dashcam is commonly to find out who was within the incorrect. Through which case, your cheaper choices across the $70 mark ought to do the trick simply effective.

Watch: Dashcam Captures Porsche Panamera Being Rear-Ended By Truck

But when it’s superior picture high quality you’re after, then issues get significantly murkier as you progress up the meals chain. Each the $269 Blackvue DR750X (the model’s costliest 1-channel cam) and the $399 Thinkware U1000 supply comparable picture high quality to the far cheaper choices from Chinese language producers. And there’s a putting similarity throughout the board.

That’s as a result of the overwhelming majority of dashcams available on the market seem like drawing from a restricted pool of picture sensor and SoC producers. Out of 9 examined dashcams, eight used processors from Novatek — most of which had been at the very least 5 years outdated. It’s an identical story with the picture sensors, that are all from Sony Starvis. Whereas there are minor variations between some cameras, that is possible all the way down to the software program they’re working, slightly than any significant {hardware} differentiation.

In terms of the assorted choices within the dashcam market, it seems that producers are completely happy to prioritize including new options — equivalent to g-force readings and cloud backups — over bettering the one factor all of us purchase them for: the precise high quality of their picture. And it seems that gained’t be altering any time quickly.

The answer? Wanting strapping a GoPro to your windshield and hitting document earlier than you set off on every journey, there simply isn’t a lot else on the market.