As other people said, the car registration plate is more important. You posted two snapshots 7.png and 8.png which are not helping concluding if Mini 2 HDR is better than A229 Plus HDR. I was zooming into both pictures but I can only guess that the Mini 2 legibility is better.
But in those snapshots I saw a thing which is infuriating me: the light banners or what is their name. The thing with Taco and BurgerKing. I will tell you later why...
... because some testers reported that the banners are not so visible with some beta firmwares. And they want better visibility for banners. If you will look above, the banners are better visible on Mini 2.
I just don't care about banners, so I made another meme about this:
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Of course the darker firmware had better HDR performance, but people and manufacturers prefer brighter images. Just imagine a side by side comparison at night between Viofo at night with a great HDR and some other potato dashcam with forced brightness at night. And the potato to be a winner just because the grass around the street is more visible at night. And the only chance to prove that Viofo is better is to show a snapshot with a car registration plate.
Yes, I explained above why. Just remember 7 years ago how hard was for a manufacturer to sell a dashcam with a smaller lens than 180 (fake advertising) lens. All people were searching for such dashcams. Now they are rare and are offered on potato-dashcams.
Not many, but almost all people. They are focused on the wrong thing. And when they will need a car license plate tell them to look on the bright grass near the road.
Yes, you are right, and right now the only technology who can get rid of over exposing is the DOL HDR.
But the HDR is affected by the settings.
It is not just a button in the firmware which is telling HDR ON and HDR OFF.
And those settings are affecting or the HDR or the brightness. We can not just have them both right now and Viofo is looking for a balanced solution.
Unfortunately this balanced solution is affected by the testers who want visible banners, bright grass and trees around the street.
For me, in such environment only the license plates are important. All others are secondary.
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