This Mio only gets 3 stars because of its grainy footage and difficult-to-adjust mounting arm 6. Mio MiVue 688 - £128.82 Rating: The resolution of the, at 1080p, doesn’t seem that sharp, so the images aren’t crystal clear, and the mounting arm is difficult to adjust, but with those negatives out the way, this Mio has some definite positives.

There’s built-in GPS so your location is recorded with the data, and you can easily store a clip manually to ensure it doesn’t get overwritten. It has crash sensors so it will do that automatically but it’s belt and braces to do that manually. It will even keep active when you’re parked so if someone reverses into you you’ll know who it was. The Roadhawk Vision is one of the more compact units available, though that means you don't get a screen 5.

Roadhawk Vision - £144.73 Rating: If you’re looking for a more discreet camera, then the fits the bill. It manages that compact size by not having a display screen, so you’ll need the app, which is free to download. You can easily use that to ensure the camera is set up correctly and download easily. It can record up to 1296p resolution so the 8GB card it comes with is useful but will need to be supplemented – it can take up to 128GB. It fixes on via an adhesive patch so it needs to really stay in place, but it’s so discreet that’s less of an issue. Expensive, while lacking other safety features, this is a quality bit of kit.

Next Base is one of the leading manufacturers on the dash cam market and the 312GW is an easy to use unit 4. Next Base 312GW - £88.95 Rating: This is the first Next Base to feature in our list, but despite its low price it has quite a few safety features and is well made and easy to operate. It records in 1080p resolution which should be good enough for most, and can manage about four hours of recording before overwriting if you use a 32GB card. It’s well made, robust and should be up to the task unless you feel you want to spend more on the 412GW model. If you have a dash cam fitted you will have solid evidence of what actually happened in an accident, it won’t simply be your word against theirs.

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This evidence can be used by the insurance companies or the courts to ascertain the truth and apportion blame, something which could be very beneficial to you. Forces to penalise dangerous drivers caught in the act. More and more motorists are feeling the benefits of using a dash cam, especially with the recent spate of cash-for-crash scams. HOW DOES A DASH CAM WORK?

A dash cam is a device with a camera that can be fixed to the windscreen of your car and work by being plugged into a 12v socket. Video is saved onto a MicroSD card, but that’s not usually included in the package you buy, so a 32GB card would be a necessary addition and would give you about four hours of recording.

After that it starts rewriting over the video but even fairly cheap units have g-force sensors so if you do have an impact the time from about 10 seconds before that impact and 20 seconds after will be stored in a separate folder that then won’t be overwritten. If you go a step further and have a dash cam permanently fitted, via the fusebox, then you could be looking at an insurance discount of up to 20 per cent depending on the provider. All that and peace of mind seems a good bet, but you can spend from around £50 up to £300 or more, so what would be a good dash cam to buy that represented decent value for money? Crack Sage Saari V 16. We reckon a figure of £150 makes a sensible maximum as you get all you need within that range. Read on to find out which one we rated the best. This super small JooVuu device is one of the most discreet dash cams on the market - and one of the most affordable. You should buy an optional £5 filter to guarantee the best footage in all conditions, though 3.