Welcome to the forum wahoyaho.
Most cameras are okay to go, some do upgrade their product and so iron out more bugs and improve on image quality, many cheaper and small brands are make / sell and then walk away dashcams and so will never get any better than they are from day #1
Some claim maintenance / format free, but really you will be wise to not set and forget your camera, even if newer models have audio alarms for bad memory card ASO, and even the best brand memory cards can die scary fast, so make sure you can RMA it easy in that case.
Really you should spend 10 minutes or so looking over your footage every 1-2 months or so, look for the start and end points of driving sessions, they should start / stop in fairly normal places you know, if a session start a few miles down the road from your house, that is suspicious behavior.
If you are anything like me you will soon notice you do / drive the same over and over, so some times checking footage you find something weird, only to recall "O yeah" that was that unusual drive last week.
It take me 10 minutes or less to look over a 128 Gb memory card thats full. (/ you just want to recognize places of start stop and then make sure the files can launch in what ever player you use,,, i use the default player with windows 10, and so only play 5 - 10 seconds of each file i sample.
Many cam capture collision and moment in parking mode, really you would want detail like a license plate, but this is not a given as it depend on lighting conditions / time of day - speed of offender.
You do not want to use motion detect it generate far too many false events and you probably better off recording all the time ( which are no good in a parked car outside in the summer as this can cause thermal shutdown )
IMO the optimal parking mode nowadays are low bitrate constant parking mode, this way the camera record all the time and have room for more parking recordings, so you don't rely on a sensor trigger that might not work.
If you go for sensor parking mode, at least make sure it have a pre-buffer so you get on record a few seconds from before the actual trigger moment.
No matter where you are capacitors are the way to go, those or batteries are there to finalize recordings in case of a violent event, and capacitors do that just fine.
ATM best all around performance are found in cameras using the Sony IMX 291 sensor ( 1080p ) but newer 1440p sensors like in the new Viofo A 119 V3 look good too. ( not sure what sensor it use i do believe it is a so called sony starvis sensor like the IMX 291, which mean optimal performance in low light conditions )
Many newer cameras now have wifi or a LCD screen and wifi, it is not something i use but for getting a file off the camera it are okay i hear, but bulk file transfers will be much better on the PC with a good USB 3.0 card reader.
Also the APPs, they can be a little hit or miss how good they are, personally i don't use APPS on my phone i delete all i can in that regard and only touch mu phone 4 minutes daily as a avid phone hater.
