Mio MiVue 518 review

The camera itself is thoughtfully designed. It’s small, so won’t prove to be too much of an obstruction to your view. The device has four buttons at the foot of the screen, and the function of those buttons changes depending on which menu screen you’re accessing at the time, which makes the device simple to operate.

The LCD display can be set to black out in as little as ten seconds after the recording starts, which means the device shouldn’t become a distraction to the driver, although we wish this screen standby mode was implemented by default, rather than being tucked away in the System settings.

The MiVue 518 has collision sensors that protect recordings from being overwritten if it detects the car has suffered a sudden impact, although both MiVue devices were the only ones to be frequently triggered by going over speed bumps on their default settings. Thankfully, you can alter the sensitivity of the sensors to reduce the risk of false positives.

Overall, we’re highly impressed by the Mio MiVue 518. It doesn’t have the greatest video quality in the world, but is by far the best budget dashcam we’ve tested and doesn’t have any serious shortcomings. It wins a Best Buy award. Buy Now from Amazon