The new series supposedly doesn't need the special (and expensive!) "parking cable" but my 57 and Mini2 don't go into parking mode reliably so I recommend it anyway.
The vid quality of the 57 is quite good for 2K day and night, but with the Mini2 being only 1080P it's not going to capture small details well. Might be OK with UK plates which are more 'readable' than here in the US and may be preferable at night due to fewer pixels each gathering more light. Remember that plate capture is 'iffy' with any cam, so if that's important to you then you need to look at a lot of vids posted by numerous users of the cam(s) you're considering to see what they can really do in real-world conditions. Vids posted by manufacturers and sellers are often done in conditions which make the product "look good" like with best lighting angles and slow speeds. Higher resolution is usually better daytime and worse at night, so if you drive a lot at night it can work against you.
My biggest issue with my 2 Garmins is the "Drive" app which doesn't work well with my phone but does work well with some other folks. In my research that's the biggest complaint found against Garmin. How much of an issue that might be for you will be relative to how and what you do with the cams. I prefer pulling the card to view/save clips so I only need the app to set up the cam and do in-cam card formatting for maintenance purposes. I've mentioned parking, but even if the cam doesn't switch it's still recording so that too may not matter to you. The LiPo batteries in most of their cams might be a problem in hotter climates but battery-equipped cams seem to do OK in the UK so again that may not be a problem. You decide.
Garmin are good cams but lacking in many things that advanced cam users want which could easily be done but aren't happening. You can certainly do a lot worse.
Phil
