Garmin Mini 2 vs. Viofo A119 V3

USDashCamera

USDashCamera

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Hey guys, I plan to review the Garmin Mini 2. Currently I have a few other cams I want to review first, but have been testing the Mini 2. I plan to add comparison videos and my review to this post. First up is my night comparison between the Mini 2 and A119 V3. EDIT: added the day comparison. cant believe it took me this long to get to but I have been busy.


 
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USDashCamera said:
Hey guys, I plan to review the Garmin Mini 2. Currently I have a few other cams I want to review first, but have been testing the Mini 2. I plan to add comparison videos and my review to this post. First up is my night comparison between the Mini 2 and A119 V3.

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It seems that the Garmin Mini2 has less motion blur and does better at handling light at dark.
 
What is the sensor from mini2?
 
EGS said:
It seems that the Garmin Mini2 has less motion blur and does better at handling light at dark.
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Yea I was surprised. They both handle low light well but when I make my u turn by the la z boy store or drive by the Trader Joe's the neon lights blur more on the A119.
 
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Nice 👍
 
Meh, exactly what I would expect from $100 hardware. They both suck at night 🙂
 
For me, another useful pic would be the dashcams mounted.

I haven't looked recently but the Garmin was another one on a ball joint whereas the Viofo is a solid mount.
 
Kremmen said:
For me, another useful pic would be the dashcams mounted.

I haven't looked recently but the Garmin was another one on a ball joint whereas the Viofo is a solid mount.
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The ball mount with mine is quite secure still, I'd say as tight as new, even after maybe 2 dozen removal/install cycles of the cam. Given the light weight of the Mini2 and short distance between mount base and cam it's a solid mounting with no vibration or accidental movement. I do with they would have done a magnetic mounting scheme as they do with their larger cams. I don't use parking mode but as a basic driving cam I can recommend it if you're happy with 1080p resolution.

Phil
 
What bugged me with my Nextbase ball joint cams was having to realign them each time I unmounted and mounted them. I'm not one to leave the cam in the car, in the garage, so I bring the dashcam indoors to offload footage.

With the Viofo I can unmount/mount it one handed and it goes back in exactly the same alignment ready for the next journey.
 
Dashmellow said:
Hard to fully evaluate a 2K camera vs a 1080p camera when both are presented at 1080p.
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For some reason my video editor only allows 1080p or 4k "projects". i could set it to a 4k project, then then manually export it while downscaling to 1440p but then thats screwing with the raw footage too. I have had a lot of issues with editing some of these comparison videos when they are different resolutions, where it glitches out and would size everything the wrong size. I actually had to edit this night comparison twice because it glitched out and no matter what I did, I could not undo the **** up it created where one of the videos was the wrong size, and the text was messed up. Even when I deleted all of the text filters, the text was still there in the wrong location. I was annoyed I had to start all over.

I use shotcut, been thinking of trying to find something better that doesn't cost a subscription like premiere.
 
I could never get shotcut to work on my old low-spec laptop 🙁 I'm still looking for an easy-to-use freeware for simple video editing 😒 I just load whole clips unedited to YouTube and put the raw file on Google Drive. Not as I like it but it works.

Phil
 
SawMaster said:
I could never get shotcut to work on my old low-spec laptop 🙁 I'm still looking for an easy-to-use freeware for simple video editing 😒 I just load whole clips unedited to YouTube and put the raw file on Google Drive. Not as I like it but it works.

Phil
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i use to put my raw files on mega.nz but after awhile I looked at the stats and saw basically nobody was downloading them so I stopped.
 
USDashCamera said:
i use to put my raw files on mega.nz but after awhile I looked at the stats and saw basically nobody was downloading them so I stopped.
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Raw files are the only way to make a real-world true comparison. Few bother to do that and save for a very few exceptions I'm one of them too 🙄 Almost all of what I'm looking for comes through on YouTube well enough for my purposes. As a cam reviewer I think it's only fair to the manufacturer to offer raw files so potential buyers can see exactly what the cam can do without the compression used on vid sharing sites like YouTube 😉 Since I use Google Drive for this and that has storage limits, I delete the older files after awhile to make space for newer ones; I'd leave them all intact if I could. Just me- you do as you wish 😎

Phil
 
SawMaster said:
Raw files are the only way to make a real-world true comparison. Few bother to do that and save for a very few exceptions I'm one of them too 🙄 Almost all of what I'm looking for comes through on YouTube well enough for my purposes. As a cam reviewer I think it's only fair to the manufacturer to offer raw files so potential buyers can see exactly what the cam can do without the compression used on vid sharing sites like YouTube 😉 Since I use Google Drive for this and that has storage limits, I delete the older files after awhile to make space for newer ones; I'd leave them all intact if I could. Just me- you do as you wish 😎

Phil
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when i signed up for mega.nz online storage was not like it was today. I pay for office 365, can i use my 1 TB onedrive storage to share just like i did on mega? I am afraid of uploading to my onedrive because i have around 1 TB of videos just from my reviews.
 
All I can tell you is that the free version of Google Drive has a 15GB storage limit, and that number encompasses all Google products used with that account including YouTube and email. I did use Mega.nz at first, but discovered that they delete content if the account doesn't get regular use so I stopped using it. I'm not into paid storage or paid anything if adequate can be had for free. I'm proudly part Scottish you know 😎

As far as review vids, I don't think losing the older ones matters much; after say a year interest in any particular new cam wanes and nobody cares. If someone does ask later on I can either reload what they want or send it to them directly- so far that has happened to me just once. Easy to do as long as my aged laptop doesn't crap out on me since I've not used even a third of the drivespace. I really should do an outboard backup or get a newer machine but I'm stupid in that respect, having not learned from numerous HD failures taking my everything with them.

You do a lot more than me with this stuff, so what works for me might not work for you. I just see SO many reviews which are similar, incomplete, or even inaccurate that I think it's worth having content which those other sites don't have to better the experience for everybody. You're doing well with your reviews as-is, especially with the depth and not coming across as "cookie cutter" type reviews which some here do so my thoughts are just a suggestion; do carry on and you have my wishes for even more success 👍

Phil
 
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Dashmellow said:
Hard to fully evaluate a 2K camera vs a 1080p camera when both are presented at 1080p.
Click to expand...
I observed two things on night recording:
1. Viofo is more sensitive if the windshield is nor very clean
2. Viofo have a forced exposure to offer brighter image on the backgrounds but this is not and advantage with the streets lights. I don't know if the motion blur present on the right side of the video is because of this or is another reason.
 
Mtz said:
I observed two things on night recording:
1. Viofo is more sensitive if the windshield is nor very clean
2. Viofo have a forced exposure to offer brighter image on the backgrounds but this is not and advantage with the streets lights. I don't know if the motion blur present on the right side of the video is because of this or is another reason.
Click to expand...

The V3 does seem prioritized for brighter images which seems to cause more motion blur. I find that reducing the exposure setting to -1/3 seems to improve the motion blur.
 
Maybe the exposure is calculated to offer good image when using CPL.
 
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