Mio is one of the most well-known dash cam brands in the UK, offering products for a variety of price points.
The 8 Series is its premium line, but within it, the 818 is close to the bottom, costing about £159.99 but lacks the ultra-high resolution sensors and glitzy features of the most costly models. Despite this, it features 1440p recording, an integrated GPS, a number of driver assistance features, and wifi and Bluetooth connectivity.
Features
The Mivue 818 has a 2.7-inch screen, a built-in speaker, and a microphone, allowing you to review footage and change settings without the need for a smartphone app, unlike some dash cams. It also has a respectable partner app that you may use to view, download, and share clips as well as modify settings. Even in a parking lot, the app may use GPS to help you locate your car.
The 818 is one of the more affordable 8 Series cameras, but it also has a number of cutting-edge driver assistance functions that are intended to mimic those found in contemporary automobiles. They include the head-up display mode, fatigue alert, forward collision and lane departure warning, and headlight reminder. The positioning and calibration of the camera might affect the performance of any aftermarket ADAS, therefore features like the HUD mode are useless when the camera should be situated out of the driver’s line of sight. The average speed camera feature, which determines the amount of time, distance, and average speed until the last speed camera to keep you inside the law, and the speed camera alarm function are both simpler.
Although the 818 only has one front-facing camera, it can be connected to the A50 rear view mirror to provide 360-degree coverage.
Structure and handling
The 818 resembles many other dash cameras in that it is compact, has a lens in the center, a 2.7-inch LCD on the back, and buttons to navigate the user interface on each side. With the aid of a mount that slides onto the front of the camera and an adhesive pad, it is fastened to the windscreen.
No of the rake of the windscreen, a ball-and-socket joint ensures the camera moves enough to function in any car. The mount’s connection to the camera isn’t the finest we’ve seen; it fits snugly but falls short of the quality and smoothness of other dash cams in this price range.
Although the camera has its own small 240mAh battery, this battery is really just designed to keep the camera working for a brief period of time after the car has been turned off. Power for use comes via a micro USB cable that plugs into the 12V lighter socket on the automobile.
However, the supplied charger lacks a second USB port, so if you often charge your phone from the 12V socket, you’ll need to use the dash cam instead. Or, invest in a 12V adapter with two USB ports and power the dash cam with a different connection.
Picture caliber
The 818, which is at the lower end of the price spectrum, offers 2K 1440P resolution rather than the 4K photos of more expensive models. In spite of this, the camera’s image quality is generally incredibly sharp and smooth. In really bright lighting, the contrast is a little low compared to the top units, but it’s not a major issue.
Performance
It’s always good to have video that is captured at a resolution that is a little higher than Full HD, and in this instance it means that the MiVue 818 provides footage that is a little bit clearer and more detailed than some other dash cams at this price point. However, since we prefer to record at a higher frame rate whenever possible, we advise customers to select the 1080p Full HD at 60 FPS option.
Simply remember to format your microSD card before you begin. Setting up the camera is straightforward. Also, even if you can extract video from a memory card using the standard method, it is preferable to follow the rules and view and transfer video via the Mio smartphone app because of the way that the MiVue organizes recordings. This is really simple because Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are built in. A free, feature-rich video viewing and management app is also available from Mio for Windows and Mac.
Although some customers will adore the speed camera and average camera warning systems, we prefer our dash cams to have a single function and be completely distraction-free. Since the screen is off to the side of your line of sight and has limited viewing angles, it is actually fairly difficult to see properly at a glance when it is positioned in the center of the vehicle.
Conclusions
The MiVue 818 is a dash cam with a ton of features that is reasonably portable, simple to set up, and has good video recording capabilities. Although we like the added features and find the average speed camera alert system to be particularly intriguing, we believe that the majority of purchasers will be most interested in the excellent video performance, built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, and the optional parking mode. Yet, some people will probably welcome a variety of driver assistance and warning systems, such as fatigue alert and forward collision warning.
At £160, we believe this dash cam is reasonably priced and will appeal to drivers who want a dash cam that is more advanced and equipped with extra capabilities than most.
