The 4 Best Dash Cams of 2023 | Reviews by Wirecutter

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We’ve added some new models to What to look forward to. We’ll test them against our picks and update this guide as soon as we can. Mirror Mounted Dash Cam

The 4 Best Dash Cams of 2023 | Reviews by Wirecutter

Wham! A car crash can happen in an instant. And as frightening as that may be, it can be just as distressing to be blamed for a crash that’s not your fault. That’s why a dash cam can be a critical aid if the unexpected happens. After researching more than 360 models and testing 52, we’ve found that the best overall dash cam is the Vantrue N4. It delivers the sharpest video we’ve seen, it’s the easiest dash cam to use, and it has handy features that you don’t get from most other dash cams in its price range.

This dash cam delivers crisp, super-high-resolution footage day or night. It also has key features such as 24-hour parked-car monitoring and GPS tracking despite costing half as much as some other contenders.

This dash cam has all the bells and whistles of our top pick (4K resolution, night vision, 24-hour parked-car monitoring, GPS tracking) and adds Bluetooth and app connectivity, built-in Alexa support, and emergency calling. Plus, its capacitor power supply allows it to operate in temperatures as low as -22 degrees Fahrenheit, so it’s your best bet for extremely cold climates.

Garmin’s Mini 2 is one of the smallest and most discreet models we’ve tested, but its lack of a display means you have to use Garmin’s smartphone app to view video and adjust settings. Its lone camera faces the front of the vehicle and has 1080p resolution.

Vantrue’s N1 Pro has a single, front-facing, 1080p-resolution camera. It costs much less than our other picks, yet it has key features like night vision and 24-hour parked-car monitoring, a bright display, and a well-designed mounting system.

The Vantrue N4 is packed with premium features such as 2160p (4K/UHD) resolution in its main camera, night vision, and 24-hour parked-car monitoring to catch hit-and-run perpetrators, yet it costs half as much as some comparable models. In addition to a front-facing camera, it has interior and rear cameras, so it documents your car’s movements (and your surroundings) from three different perspectives. It’s compact (a little smaller than most point-and-shoot cameras) and relatively unobtrusive on a windshield, and its 3-inch screen is bright and easy to read. It has an intuitive menu, and its control buttons are clearly marked and readily accessible. And although it isn’t as well suited for sub-freezing temperatures as our other picks, it is designed to work even in extremely hot climates such as in the American South and Southwest. Unlike some of our other picks, the N4 lacks app connectivity for you to view and download video remotely. But we think most people wouldn’t miss that feature, as it’s still fairly convenient to view footage on the camera itself or with a microSD card reader. The N4 also lacks built-in GPS tracking, but you can easily add that by buying a GPS mount ($20 at this writing) from Vantrue.

If you want even more capabilities than the N4 can provide—such as a built-in Wi-Fi network to connect to a smartphone app, Bluetooth connectivity, Alexa support, and an emergency-calling feature that automatically sends help in the event of a crash—the Nextbase 622GW is worth splurging on. Like the N4, it has an easy-to-use interface and mount, as well as 4K resolution, night vision, GPS tracking, 24-hour parked-car monitoring, and more. Its maximum operating temperature is 140 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with the sweltering 158-degree heat our top pick and budget pick are designed to withstand. But since it’s rated to operate in temperatures as low as -22 °F (colder than an average Minnesotan winter night), it’s your best bet for extremely cold climates. It comes with only a front-facing camera, but at this writing you can add a 1080p rear camera for $100 and/or a 1080p interior camera for $100.

If you prefer a dash cam that people aren’t likely to notice, we recommend the Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2, which is one of the smallest and most discreet models we’ve tested. About the size of a key fob, the Mini 2 virtually disappears on the windshield. Still, it provides surprisingly good video quality for a 1080p single-camera model, and its windshield mount is one of the best we’ve seen—it sticks firmly to the windshield with adhesive, but magnets allow you to easily remove everything but a small plastic circle when you want to throw the camera in the glovebox or move it to another vehicle. It has many of the same features you get with the bigger (and, in most cases, pricier) models, including night vision, 24-hour parked-car monitoring, built-in Wi-Fi, and voice control. Because the Mini 2 has only two physical buttons and no display, though, you have to use Garmin’s smartphone app to view video, to adjust settings, and even to aim the camera properly.

The Vantrue N1 Pro is the only dash cam under $100 we’ve ever recommended. Despite its relatively low price, it meets all our required criteria, including 1080p resolution, night vision, and 24-hour parked-car monitoring. It has the same convenient mounting system that comes with our top pick (and, as with the N4, you have the option to add GPS tracking by buying a separate mount). It also has easy-to-use controls and a bright display, and it’s nearly as compact as the Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2. Like the Mini 2, it doesn’t offer the option to add an interior- or rear-facing camera—so you can’t record what’s going on inside the vehicle or behind you—but a front-facing camera is plenty of protection for most people.

Sarah Witman has been a science writer for more than eight years, covering a wide variety of topics from particle physics to satellite remote sensing. Since joining Wirecutter in 2017, she has reviewed trail cameras, portable power stations, rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, and more.

Rik Paul, who contributed reporting for this guide, has been testing and writing about automotive electronics and accessories for the past 25 years. To get the legal perspective on dash cams, he interviewed Ben Schwartz, a personal injury attorney and managing partner of Schwartz & Schwartz Attorneys at Law.

If your routine drive ever turns into a life-altering event, you’ll probably appreciate having a dash cam to show what happened. This continuously recording, windshield-mounted device can document an accident or other incident you’re involved in, providing you with evidence that could (ideally) help prove your innocence to a lawyer, an insurance company, or law enforcement.

Case in point: One Wirecutter staffer was able to use his dash-cam footage to prove that he wasn’t at fault after he was rear-ended in a parking garage. Although the forward-facing camera couldn’t record the vehicle in back actually striking his car, he said, “It showed that I was driving appropriately, and captured the sound, jolt from impact, and mine and my girlfriend’s reactions.”

In addition, a dash cam can help other drivers who need objective eyewitness evidence following a crash, a hit-and-run incident, a road-rage situation, or police misconduct. You can use it to record unsafe roadway conditions or to monitor the driving habits of someone else in your car—with their consent, of course—such as an inexperienced driver or an older adult. A dash cam can also come in handy if you just want to capture and share a funny scene, a memorable trip moment, a beautiful vista, or unusual happenings like streaking meteors (video).

“There are thousands of people who are injured and killed every year by hit-and-run drivers,” said Ben Schwartz, a personal-injury attorney we interviewed. “If those hit-and-run victims had a dash cam in their car, maybe the video would record the tag number of the vehicle that hit them, and then that would lead police to the bad guys.”

But there are potential disadvantages, Schwartz noted: “Not only will a dash cam document other people’s mistakes, but it’s going to document yours.” Whether or not you think you’re at fault, Schwartz said, you should first show the footage to your lawyer. “Let the attorney determine whether the footage is favorable or not favorable to [your] case, and let the attorney advise you on what to do with the footage.”

Finally, there are some practical considerations. Learn how to set up a dash cam, and start thinking about how you would install a dash cam in your car before deciding that you want one. Almost all dash cams record video on a removable microSD card, and many don’t come with one, adding cost (a good microSD card costs about $35 at this writing). Also, you should confirm that you can legally mount a dash cam on your windshield where you live, and learn your state’s audio- and video-recording laws.

Most microSD cards are good enough, but if you know what to look for, it’s not hard to get one that’s great.

Before choosing which dash cams to test, we spent hours researching the specs and features of about 380 models. We read reviews from Autoblog, BlackBoxMyCar, CNET, Digital Trends, PCMag, Popular Mechanics, T3, and TechRadar (though many of them were thin on hands-on experience), as well as customer reviews and ratings (after we checked their reliability on Fakespot). We also perused some driving legislation and insurance claims, and we watched hours of dash-cam footage on YouTube.

Most dash cams work in a similar way. They record to a microSD card and use loop recording, so the newest video overwrites the oldest. They have built-in G-sensors (or accelerometers) that detect an impact, and in the event of a crash they automatically save that footage from being overwritten. Typically, you can also manually save footage by pressing a button or giving a voice command. You can review footage on the unit’s display, on a smartphone app, or on any device that can read a microSD card. Some dash cams come with an 8, 16, or 32 GB microSD card, but most can support up to 256 GB if you want to back up or delete your files less frequently. Dash cams can also record audio, if you want, and most models let you capture a still photo.

We narrowed our search based on the following criteria:

We also preferred (but didn’t require) models to have the following features:

Our selection process left us with 14 models to compare against our existing picks for our 2022 round of testing: the BlackVue DR900X-1CH Plus, the Cobra SC 400D, the Garmin Dash Cam 57, the Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2, the Garmin Dash Cam Tandem, the Rexing M2, the Rexing V1 Basic, the Rexing V5, the Sylvania Roadsight Mirror, the Thinkware F200 Pro, the Thinkware F70, the Vantrue N1 Pro, the Vantrue N4, and the Vantrue X4S.

While setting up each dash cam, we first evaluated the layout of the controls, the size and location of the buttons, and the ease of navigating the menus. We checked the brightness and clarity of the display, downloaded and connected to the app (if applicable), and performed common tasks. We also took notes on the camera’s build quality and overall design.

We then set up the dash cams in a car, evaluating how easy it was to attach the mounts to the windshield, connect the dash cams to their mounts, adjust the aim of the cameras, and then remove them. We tested the cameras in bright sunlight and at night, and on highways and suburban streets, racking up hours of driving time. To make sure we could accurately compare the dash cams with one another, we drove the same routes, which we chose for the amount of detail available for the cameras to capture.

Then we spent many more hours playing back the video footage on a computer so that we could examine and compare details and overall image quality. Based on all of this, we finally made our picks.

The Vantrue N4 is an unfussy, all-around great dash cam. It offers the best range of features for the price—$260 at this writing—that we’ve found. It’s small and sleek, so it won’t obstruct your view while you’re driving, but its 3-inch screen is big and bright enough to allow you to easily navigate the menu. It’s especially simple and straightforward to set up and use, and it reliably captures crisp, clear video. If you want tri-directional visibility (front, interior, and rear) and can live without luxury features like app connectivity, this is the dash cam to get.

The N4 has a front-facing camera with 4K resolution (the best possible resolution available in any dash cam being sold today), as well as interior and rear-facing cameras with 1080p resolution. In our testing, the primary camera recorded clear footage with true-to-life, appropriately saturated colors. It was able to pick up on license plate numbers and other important details even in dim or dark environments.

The mount clips onto the top of the dash cam, and a crank on the back of the mount affixes it firmly to the windshield. A knob on the neck of the mount lets you aim the N4 at the angle that works best for you, and the suction cup has a small lip so you can easily remove it and adjust the placement.

The N4 comes with a 12-volt car charger, the base of which flips open to reveal a USB-A port. This feature is invaluable if you want to charge your phone or another small device from the car port while the dash cam is in use (otherwise you need to use a socket splitter or bring along a power bank). It also has a helpful round light that lets you know whether the charger is properly plugged in and powering the dash cam. The Mini-USB cable attached to the charger is 12 feet long, as on most models we tested, so you have plenty of flexibility as to where you place the dash cam in your vehicle. The camera also comes with a Mini-USB–to–USB-A cable, which you’ll need to plug the camera into most computers or a wall charger.

The screen of the N4 measures 3 inches diagonally, and as it takes up most of the back of the main camera body, there’s not much extra bulk. The unit as a whole is slim, too; together, the lens and body are just over 1½ inches deep. It has a power button on top, so you don’t have to unplug it (or turn off your car) to power it down. The charging cable can plug into a port on top of the unit or a port on the mount.

Located above the screen are five clearly marked and easily accessible control buttons, which allow you to quickly turn the audio on and off, format the microSD card, and do other basic tasks. The screen is brightly backlit, and the menu interface is intuitive and simple to navigate. Also, the main camera’s FOV is 155 degrees, right in the sweet spot of our preferred viewing-angle range; it’s wide enough to capture cars parked on both sides of most streets, as well as traffic coming from the left or right at an intersection.

Like the rest of our picks, the N4 has a 24-hour parked-car monitoring mode to keep tabs on your car when it’s parked. This espionage tool is helpful when it comes to documenting hit-and-runs or other damage to your vehicle when you’re not around. The camera turns on and starts recording anytime it detects motion inside or right around the vehicle, such as when a neighbor’s car taps your bumper (as with all our picks, you need to buy a separate external battery pack or hardwiring kit if you want to use this feature).

Since the N4 is powered by a capacitor instead of a lithium-ion battery, it can function in extreme heat, which is a nice asset if you plan to drive in places with particularly hot climates. It’s designed to be able to function in temperatures from 14 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, the latter of which is hotter than a summer day in Death Valley, so you should be able to rely on it in most instances.

Although the Vantrue N4 works great in warm weather, it’s less suitable for very cold climates. If you think you might be using your dash cam in temperatures below 14 degrees Fahrenheit, you’d be better off with the Nextbase 622GW (which is rated to operate in temperatures as low as -22 °F).

Another notable downside of the N4 is that it doesn’t have built-in GPS tracking (though you can add that function with a GPS-equipped mount, sold separately) or a built-in Wi-Fi network to connect to a smartphone app. This means that you can’t check your car’s speed and location remotely, or view, download, and share video when you’re away from your dash cam, as you can with the 622GW and some other models we’ve tested. But the absence of these features also means that the N4 doesn’t pose any privacy or security concerns related to how the company might use collected data. And although with other dash cams a company may decide to stop supporting or updating an app at any time, causing your dash cam to lose some functionality, you don’t run that risk with this model.

The N4 also lacks some of the convenient driver-assist features that the 622GW has, such as Alexa support, Bluetooth connectivity, and emergency calling. However, as this Vantrue model is often half the price of the Nextbase, we think most people wouldn’t miss those luxuries.

If your budget allows for it, the Nextbase 622GW represents a big step up from our top pick. For twice the price, you get equally great image quality and a wider range of features. Built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity lets you sync the camera with a smartphone app to access speed, location, and other data remotely; Alexa voice control allows you to play music, place calls, check the weather, get directions, and more while keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road; and the uncommon Emergency SOS feature can automatically notify emergency services in the event of a crash, providing your location and other critical information. To boot, the 622GW has the best mounting system of any dash cam we’ve tested, it’s rated to operate in colder temperatures than any of our other picks, and it has an assortment of handy add-ons that don’t come with most of the cheaper models.

The Nextbase 622GW has a single, front-facing camera with 4K resolution (unlike with our top pick, its 1080p interior and rear cameras must be purchased separately). Both during the day and at night, it can capture crucial visual information such as street signs, license plate numbers, and even car makes and models in vivid detail. Although its 140-degree FOV is a bit narrower than that of the Vantrue N4, that amount is still within our ideal range for viewing as many objects as possible at the same time.

The 622GW comes with a suction-cup mounting system that’s similar to the N4’s but better in a few key ways. First, the mount attaches to the body of the camera with magnets, a design that’s exponentially easier to attach and detach than the N4’s plastic clips, and the whole setup stays together just as sturdily. To aim the dash cam, it has a ball-and-socket hinge, which is slightly easier to use than the knob on the N4’s mount, as well as a small lever to lock the mount in place on the windshield. If you prefer a more permanent setup, you can simply remove the suction cup and swap in an adhesive attachment. Nextbase conveniently includes extra stickers for the adhesive mount, so you can replace them, as well as a small plastic prying tool for when you want to remove it (even with the tool, unsticking an adhesive mount is difficult, so you’ll be glad to have it).

The 622GW has the lowest minimum operating temperature (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) of any of our picks, which is helpful if you live in an especially cold climate. It doesn’t fare as well in extreme heat, however: While our top pick and budget pick are both safe to use in environments up to 158 °F, this Nextbase dash cam’s tolerance tops out at 140 °F. So if you plan on using your dash cam somewhere very warm—keeping in mind that a car parked in direct sunlight acts like a greenhouse and gets much hotter than its surroundings—you may want to consider one of those other models instead.

Other than the Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2, the Nextbase 622GW is the only model among our picks with built-in Wi-Fi, letting you connect to a smartphone app. The app allows you to perform basic tasks, such as viewing, downloading, and sharing video, remotely. However, at this writing it has a dismal rating of two out of five stars on both the Google and Apple app stores, with many complaints about slow or spotty Wi-Fi connections. And as with any app, the company could decide to stop providing support or updates at any time.

Like all of our picks, this dash cam offers 24-hour parked-car monitoring, so (with an external battery pack or hardwiring kit, sold separately) it can record if your car gets bumped or damaged while parked. It also has built-in GPS tracking so you can go back and review your location, your speed, and other relevant details from the time of a critical incident. You can access your data from the app or upload data to Nextbase’s cloud storage service, but both actions are optional (if you’re concerned about being surveilled by your dash-cam app, don’t opt in).

The 622GW is one of the few models we’ve tested with built-in Alexa support and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as an SOS feature that (with a paid subscription through the app) can send your location and other critical information to emergency services in the event of a crash. The latter functionality is rare to see in dash cams, and that feature alone would probably justify this model’s relatively high cost if you ever needed to use it.

Like our top pick, the Nextbase 622GW is sleek and compact. Its screen, just like that of the Vantrue N4, measures 3 inches diagonally. The display is brightly illuminated, and the menu is fairly intuitive to navigate. The controls are mostly touchscreen based except for a small home button at the bottom of the screen and a power button on the side of the unit. A rubber port protector attached by a tiny tether is helpful for keeping dust and moisture out of the Mini-USB port on top of the unit, though the port on the mount lacks this feature. Also, we wish the HDMI port’s protector had a tether, too, as most people are likely to find it hard not to lose the small piece of rubber.

In addition to a Mini-USB–to–USB-A cable, the 622GW includes a 12-volt car charger with a lengthy cable attached (13 feet, a foot longer than the N4’s). A small light helpfully indicates when the charger is properly plugged into the car’s port and powering the dash cam. Unfortunately, Nextbase’s car charger doesn’t have a built-in USB-A port, as Vantrue’s chargers do, so you need to use a socket splitter or pack a power bank in your bag if you want to charge your phone and power the dash cam simultaneously.

If you’re looking for a dash cam that people aren’t likely to notice, we recommend the Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2. Measuring only about 2 inches high and 1¼ inches wide (about the size of a key fob), it’s one of the smallest and most discreet models we’ve tested, virtually disappearing on a windshield. You should always let passengers know they’re being recorded—even if notification is not legally required in your state, it’s just good etiquette—but that doesn’t mean your dash cam must be overly obtrusive. The Mini 2’s streamlined look reduces unsightly clutter, and its simplistic controls and screenless design help minimize potential distractions.

The Mini 2 has a single, front-facing camera that records at 1080p resolution, yet it delivers surprisingly good video quality compared with similar models. It has the same 140-degree FOV as the Nextbase 622GW, on the narrow side but still within our ideal range. Like all our other picks, it has a 24-hour parked-car monitoring mode to detect motion and impacts whether the car is running or not (and as with our other picks, you have to buy a separate external battery pack or hardwiring kit to use this feature).

In our testing with the Mini 2, we found it harder to read license plates on parked and oncoming cars than with the best 4K models, but the images had bright colors and bold highlights and shadows. At night, headlights and other bright lights had minimal glare—which can’t be said for what we’ve seen in the nighttime video of many other dash cams—and the footage had good contrast.

Because the Mini 2 is so small, it doesn’t have a display; you have to use the Garmin Drive smartphone app to aim the device correctly (through its live-view function) and to adjust settings. You’ll also find only two control buttons on the Mini 2’s body. An easy-to-reach button on the back of the unit saves the most recent video and takes a still photo when pressed or syncs with the smartphone app when held down. A button on the side turns the sound on and off or (with a long press) formats the SD card. Since the Mini 2 has no physical power button, the only way to turn off the camera is to turn off the car or unplug the power cord.

The adhesive mount that comes with the Mini 2 provides a wide range of adjustment, and you can easily pop the device on and off, leaving just a small plastic disc on the windshield. This mount doesn’t include the handy magnetic attachment that other Garmin models and the Nextbase 622GW have, but we like that it stays in place more firmly.

The Mini 2’s charger is more like a standard car charger than the ones that come with our other picks: Instead of a built-in charging cable, it has two USB-A ports and comes with two separate, removable charging cables (one is 13 feet long, the other 5 feet long). This design makes it a more versatile charger, since you can use a longer or shorter cable to power your dash cam, and you can use both USB-A ports to charge other devices when the dash cam isn’t in use.

Like our top pick, the Mini 2 is powered by a capacitor rather than a lithium-ion battery. It’s rated to operate in temperatures between -4 °F (like our budget pick) and 140 °F (like our upgrade pick). Although it’s not much better suited to extreme climates than our other picks, it should still work normally in most places at most times of year.

Unlike our other picks, the Mini 2 doesn’t offer built-in GPS tracking (nor the ability to add it with a separate mount, as our budget pick does). However, it does have voice control and built-in Wi-Fi, both of which are rare features—even among dash cams costing hundreds more.

The Garmin Drive app is more limited than the Nextbase app, and in our tests the recorded video was a bit choppy when we played it back on the app. However, at this writing the Garmin Drive app has a rating around 4.5 stars (out of five) on Google Play and the Apple App Store, whereas the Nextbase app has just two stars on both those platforms. So perhaps most people prefer the simplicity of Garmin’s app.

In 2020, Garmin suffered a ransomware attack that took its services down for three days. The company claims that no customer data was stolen, but this incident reinforces our general concerns about how companies handle data. Garmin’s privacy policy says its apps do not upload video, location, or other data to its servers (or third-party servers) unless you opt in. But since this dash cam’s lack of a screen makes it nearly impossible to use without connecting to the app, these risks are especially important to consider before you buy.

If you’re on a tight budget, the Vantrue N1 Pro is the only dash cam listed for under $100 that we recommend—or have ever recommended—since it cuts costs without sacrificing most of the features we prize in our other picks. It has the same mounting system and charger as our top pick, it’s just as easy to use, and it’s one of the smallest and lightest dash cams we’ve tested.

Like the Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2, the N1 Pro has a single, front-facing, 1080p-resolution camera, and it lacks the option to add a second or third camera—the same is true of every sub-$100 option we considered for testing. Although its footage wasn’t as clearly defined or vividly colored as that of our top pick and upgrade pick (both of which have 4K-resolution main cameras) in our testing, it still managed to record crisp, detailed imagery in both light and dark environments. Also, its 160-degree FOV is the widest of our picks, which means it shows more objects from a single viewpoint than the others do.

Measuring just 1 by ½ by ¾ inches, the N1 Pro is not much bigger than an Oreo cookie. It’s slightly larger than the Mini 2, especially in combination with its mounting system and charger, but it’s still much more compact than our top pick and upgrade pick (and most of the dash cams we tested). Its screen is 1½ inches diagonal, so it fits less information than the 3-inch screens of our top pick and upgrade pick, but it’s bright and relatively easy to read.

The N1 Pro is dead simple to use. To the right of the screen, it has four well-marked control buttons: power on/off, up, down, and select. On the top of the unit is a single button that lets you easily save video clips and still photos while the camera is recording (otherwise, like most dash cams, it saves footage automatically when it detects a crash).

Like the rest of our picks, the N1 Pro has 24-hour parked-car monitoring, so (with the help of an external battery pack or hardwiring kit, sold separately) it can help you keep tabs on your car even when you’re not present. And, as with our top pick, you can add GPS tracking by buying a separate mount. It doesn’t have built-in Wi-Fi compatibility like our picks from Garmin and Nextbase do, but we don’t think that’s a must-have feature for most people.

Powered by a lithium-ion battery, the N1 Pro is rated to operate in temperatures between -4 and 158 degrees Fahrenheit. If you live in a super-cold climate, you might be better off with the Nextbase 622GW (which functions in temperatures as cold as -22 °F), but for extreme heat the N1 Pro and our top pick are equally great options.

If our top pick is unavailable, and you want something with a similar array of features in the same price range:

If our upgrade pick is unavailable, and you’re willing to sacrifice some usability to gain a wider range of features than our other picks offer:

If our incognito pick is unavailable, and you don't mind a slightly larger, pricier camera as long as it comes with a few extra features:

Ring, the Amazon brand known for its video doorbells and other smart home devices, has released its first dash cam. Announced in January 2023, the Ring Car Cam costs $200 to preorder or $250 normally, making it slightly less expensive than our top pick. It lacks a rear-facing camera, and its front and interior cameras only provide HD resolution (we’d ideally prefer to see 4K resolution at this price point). However, we’re interested in testing it as soon as we can, since it seems like a convenient option for people who already own other devices in the Ring ecosystem.

Also in January 2023, Garmin started selling the Garmin Dash Cam Live. It costs $400 at this writing, and has a 1440p front camera with a 140-degree field of view. With a paid subscription, it has LTE connectivity that lets you access features such as live viewing, location tracking, and break-in alerts anytime via your smartphone. Like all of Garmin’s dash cams, it’s exceedingly tiny, measuring just 3.3 by 2.0 by 0.9 inches. It has a screen on the back, four control buttons on the side, and the same mount as the rest of Garmin’s lineup. Also, for an extra $50 you can bundle the dash cam with Garmin’s Constant Power Cable, allowing you to utilize the camera’s full range of features even when your car is turned off.

BlackVue announced a new suite of cloud-connected dash cams in January 2023, which we’ll consider for our next round of testing as soon as more information becomes available. The lineup includes the DR970X-2CH LTE, which has built-in LTE connectivity, a 4K front-facing camera, and the option to choose either a rear-facing or interior-facing camera. It also includes the DR770X-2CH LTE, which has built-in LTE connectivity, a Full HD front camera, and the choice of an interior camera, a driver-monitoring interior camera, a rear camera, or an external rear camera that’s fully waterproof and attaches to a side mirror. For the security-conscious driver, the DR770X Box has three cameras (front, interior, and rear) and a lock-protected recording unit that can be stowed in a glovebox when the car is parked.

Bosch and Eyeride both debuted new dash cams in January 2023. The former was reportedly designed with rideshare drivers in mind, while the latter promises smart features such as advanced driver assistance and a driver monitoring system for added safety. We’ll consider testing these models once we know more about them.

Nextbase announced in January 2023 that it would release a new model later in the year called the iQ Smart Dash Cam (unfortunately, despite stating previously that it would launch in 2022, the company has yet to set a firm release date for the dash cam). According to Nextbase, the iQ has three cameras—showing the front, interior, and rear of the vehicle—with impressive resolutions of 4K, 1440p, and 1440p, respectively. It’s equipped with features we prize in many of our current picks, including night vision, parked-car monitoring, GPS tracking, wireless connectivity, and an emergency-alert system. It also adds a few we haven’t seen before, such as Witness Mode (which lets you record and share live video with a voice prompt), Driver Aware (which detects when your eyelids start to droop or stray from the road), and Valet Mode (which allows you to keep tabs on your vehicle when it’s being valet-parked, undergoing work at a body shop, or out on loan to another driver).

Viofo has released several models since our last round of testing, including the A139 Pro 3CH. It has a 4K front camera in addition to 1080p rear and interior cameras, and many of the same premium features found in our top and upgrade picks. We plan to test it as soon as we can.

To get the best view of the road ahead, mount a dash cam high in the center of the windshield, near the rearview mirror. You should be able to see the unit’s screen and easily reach its controls, but the camera shouldn’t block your forward view. Some states have regulations regarding what you can mount on a windshield and where, so check your local laws. Also, don’t skip the car wash: No matter how good your dash cam’s resolution is, it won’t be able to capture crisp, detailed footage through a dirty windshield.

Most dash cams have a long cord that plugs into a car’s 12 V DC outlet (also known as a cigarette lighter). To get the unit’s dangling cord out of your way, we suggest running it to the passenger side and tucking it into the molding between the top of the windshield and the car’s headliner. From there, you can run the cord down along the edge of the windshield and the front pillar, into the gap on the side of the dash, and underneath the dash to the power outlet. Securing the cord isn’t hard to do, but it can require patience. Some dash cams come with small cable-holding clips that adhere to the glass and hold the cord, as well as a small tool for fitting the cord between the trim or molding. This video does a decent job of showing how to perform a tidy installation.

If your dash cam’s charger doesn’t have a built-in USB-A port, and you want to be able to charge a phone or other device while the dash cam is in use, you have a few options. If the power cord unplugs from its adapter, you could plug it into a multiport USB car charger, which leaves a port open for other devices. If not, you could use a 12-volt splitter; in our testing, we had success with these three-outlet splitters. Most dash-cam companies also sell hardwire kits that can connect directly to a vehicle’s fuse box; in fact, this is often the best way to get reliable power for using a dash cam’s parking mode. If you’re comfortable doing basic automotive wiring and using a circuit tester, you can easily hardwire the dash cam to the fuse box yourself. But any car-stereo shop (and some big-box retailers like Best Buy) can do it for you.

The BlackVue DR900S-2CH has a 4K-resolution front-facing camera that delivers excellent sharpness and wide dynamic range. In our tests, the front and rear cameras both shot very good night video, but we also saw more glare than in our upgrade pick’s video. The unit has no display and minimal physical controls, so changing even basic settings requires an app, which had connection issues in our tests (and has been shown to publicly track users’ locations).

The BlackVue DR900X-1CH Plus has many of the features we value in our upgrade pick: 4K resolution in the front-facing camera, the option to add 1080p rear and interior cameras, night vision, a 24-hour parked-car monitoring mode, built-in GPS tracking, and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s also one of the few models we tested with a built-in mobile-hotspot feature. However, its mount is less user-friendly than that of our upgrade pick, and it lacks that model’s Alexa support, voice control, Bluetooth connectivity, and emergency-alert system.

The Cobra DASH2316D can link to Cobra’s iRadar app to alert you to the locations of speed cameras and red-light cameras, as well as live police locations. But in our tests, the 1080p front video lacked sharpness and was too contrasty, which resulted in too much glare at night and a lack of detail in darker areas. The 720p rear camera’s video was even worse. The DASH2316D also includes forward-collision and lane-departure alerts, but we found them to be annoyingly sensitive and switched them off.

The Cobra Road Scout is basically a radar detector with an integrated dash cam. With 1080p resolution and a reasonable 154-degree FOV, the Road Scout captures decent video, and a strong magnetic mount makes it easy to pop on and off the windshield. But at about 4 by 4 inches, the Road Scout is large by dash-cam standards, and it’s one of the most expensive models we’ve tested. On top of that, you can’t review video on its small radar-detector display; you have to use the phone app.

The Garmin Speak Plus is an unusual, voice-activated device that includes a 1080p dash cam, Garmin navigation, and Amazon’s Alexa capability. It’s effective for navigation, but if you primarily want a dash cam, you have better choices. It has a very narrow, 82-degree field of view, the compact display does not show dash-cam video, and the unit needs to pair to your phone via Bluetooth to function at all.

In our testing, video from the Geko S200 Starlit wasn’t as sharp as we expected, considering the camera’s 1296p resolution. This compact unit has a cheap, plasticky feel, with small buttons that tend to wiggle when pressed, as well as a black-on-black design with minimal labeling that’s hard to read at a glance. The S200 also lacks GPS, Wi-Fi, and a smartphone app.

The Klashwerks Raven combines a dual-cam setup with navigation, security, and vehicle tracking. But it’s hard to get both cameras aligned, and it’s difficult to consistently save video using this model’s gesture controls. We also found that in hot weather the adhesive mount had trouble holding the large, 7-inch device on our windshield.

The MyGekoGear Orbit 960 (from the company formerly known as Geko) has a 4K front-facing camera and some premium features such as GPS tracking and app connectivity. You can also buy a hardwiring kit separately to add 24-hour parked-car monitoring. In our testing, the Orbit 960 was easy to set up and use, and footage from both day and night was crisp and clear. However, at this writing it has just nine customer reviews on Amazon (and a rating of 3.8 out of five stars), which makes us hesitant to recommend it.

The 1440p Nextbase 522GW is a former top pick, and the 1440p Nextbase 422GW is a former runner-up pick, but neither can compete with the lower-priced 4K dash cams that are now available. We’ve also tested their less-expensive counterparts—the 1080p Nextbase 322GW and the 720p Nextbase 222—but our budget pick offers a broader range of features.

We used to recommend the Owlcam (which the company has since replaced with two similar versions, the Owlcam Classic 4 and Owlcam Classic 5) because its ability to detect impacts or break-ins and record video to the cloud—as well as to stream a live feed even while the car was parked—made it great for 24-hour monitoring. However, the company temporarily suspended support for existing customers when it went out of business in early 2020 (it has since been acquired by Xirgo Technologies). Because of this hiccup, and the fact that other dash cams now offer similar features for the same price or less, we no longer recommend these cameras.

The inexpensive Papago GoSafe 228 has the worst image quality of any model we’ve tested, as well as a fairly narrow, 120-degree FOV.

The rear camera of the Papago GoSafe S780 mounts on the rear window (to record behind the car) or on the windshield (to record the interior). But the rear camera is only so-so, and if there’s no ambient light, the interior image is almost totally black. Also, we had a difficult time tightening the mount’s plastic locking nut without the cam going crooked.

The Rexing M2 and Sylvania Roadsight Mirror are nearly identical models that, rather than mounting onto the windshield, clamp onto the rearview mirror. It’s a neat idea—it effectively turns your rearview mirror into a touchscreen, making it almost impossible to detect unless you know it’s there—and, in addition to the 1080p front-facing camera our incognito pick has, they add a 1080p rear-facing camera. But in our testing both models produced fairly washed-out, low-contrast footage, making them a poor replacement for a typical rearview mirror. Also, if for some reason the dash cam malfunctioned or lost power while you were driving, you’d lose visibility out of the back windshield.

The Rexing V1 Gen 3 records at 2160p (4K) resolution, but its rate of 24 frames per second isn’t as smooth as the usual 30 fps. And the video, with muted colors and excessive glare, wasn’t as crisp as the Nextbase models’ footage in our testing. At night, the video was contrasty and grainy. We also found it hard to adjust the lens position or connect the app.

The Rexing V1 and Rexing V1 Basic are two of the least expensive dash cams we’ve tested. Each one has a 1080p-resolution front-facing camera and a 170-degree field of view, as well as night vision, 24-hour parked-car monitoring, and the option to add GPS tracking with an antenna (sold separately). However, in our testing, both cameras showed too much contrast in their video footage, especially at night.

The Rexing V1P Gen 3 has a 1080p-resolution front-facing camera that we found to have a lot of contrast and glare in our testing. Its buttons illuminate when pressed, but unless you touch one, they’re invisible at night. Though you can adjust the lens in any direction by physically moving it, doing so is difficult when the unit is mounted on the windshield.

The Thinkware F200 Pro offers night vision, a 24-hour parked-car monitoring mode, and Wi-Fi connectivity, and it weighs just 2 ounces. You can also add GPS tracking with an antenna (sold separately). However, its cameras are a lower resolution than those of our top pick and upgrade pick: It has a 1080p-resolution front-facing camera and gives you the option to add a 1080p rear camera for $80 and a 1080p interior camera for $80 at this writing. It’s also a bit bigger than our incognito pick (about the size and shape of a Snickers bar) and too pricey ($140 at this writing) to be a good budget pick contender, and its mounting system is less adjustable and more difficult to remove than any of our picks’ mounts.

The Thinkware F70 is almost as tiny as our incognito pick (it weighs 1.5 ounces) and as inexpensive as our budget pick ($90 at this writing). It has night vision, a 24-hour parked-car monitoring mode, the option to add GPS tracking with an antenna (sold separately), and a 1080p-resolution front-facing camera (no option to add a rear or interior camera, though). However, as with the F200 Pro, its mounting system is less adjustable and more difficult to remove than any of our picks’ mounts.

The Thinkware U1000 has a 4K front camera, and you can add a 2K rear camera for $100 more at this writing. But it’s more finicky to use and more expensive than models we tested with a wider range of features.

The Vantrue N2 Pro Dual used to be one of our picks, but its front and interior cameras have worse resolutions (1440p and 1080p, respectively) than those of our top pick and upgrade pick, and it offers no additional features.

The Vava VA-VD009 has a 1600p front camera and a 1080p interior camera, both of which produced clear and vivid footage in our tests. We also found this model easy to set up and use, and relatively unobtrusive on the windshield. But it costs just as much as other models with the same features and higher-resolution cameras.

The Viofo A129 Pro Duo has a 4K front camera and a 1080p rear camera. It offers a good mix of features (including GPS tracking, 24-hour parked-car monitoring, and app connectivity), but in our tests it was much more difficult to set up and use compared with less-expensive models offering the same capabilities.

This article was edited by Phil Ryan and Erica Ogg.

Consider a dash cam an additional layer of protection because it can provide an objective eyewitness to an accident or other incident you’re involved in. Dash cams can also record a crash, a hit-and-run, or police misconduct that has occurred in your vicinity.

The laws around dash cams are decided at the state level, so you need to confirm if they’re safe to use where you live and familiarize yourself with local audio- and video-recording laws.

Dash cams are small cameras that mount to your dashboard and continuously record video, usually to a microSD card. For power, dash cams can draw from the car's 12 V DC outlet (also known as a cigarette lighter), a power bank, or connect directly to the car’s fuse box (the latter is best if you need continuous power to record even when the car is parked and the engine is off).

Most dash cams use loop recording, which means that when the SD card is full, the newest video will start to overwrite the oldest continuously. The amount of video you can store before the camera starts overwriting footage will depend on the size of the camera’s SD card.

Sarah Witman has researched, tested, and reviewed all manner of products—from massage chairs and mousetraps to pencils and power banks—since joining Wirecutter in 2017. Before that, she worked as a science writer and fact checker for numerous publications, and she studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin. In her spare time, she eats as much cheese as her body will tolerate.

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Wearable Video Recorder Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).