One of the best dash cams of 2018 for me came from Nextbase and it’s still a dash cam I use today. The 612GW ticked all the right boxes and was the only one that recorded in 4K. Continuing with the award winning formula in 2019, Nextbase’s Series 2 dash cams up the ante in features and again becomes a serious contender for dash cam of the year. The first Series 2 dash cam in the lineup I’m checking out is the new Nextbase 422GW. This is a QUAD HD dash cam with a built-in touchscreen, Alexa, Nextbase Emergency SOS services, a new Click&Go Pro mount, and cloud services.
Design
The new Nextbase 422GW isn’t their top of the line model, but it does incorporate much of what I saw in the 612GW. This unit is actually much smaller and now has a built-in touchscreen. That’s one of the main upgrades for these Series 2 models. Not only that, there is a new port on the side that allows for the use of an optional rear camera module.
The second major upgrade here is the new Click&Go mount that has changed from the previous Series 1 models. While the old version was nice, this new one is much sturdier and better made. It’s now a magnet mount that is supposed to make removal of the dash cam easier. Also you can now attach the mount to your windshield via a suction attachment or with double sided tape.
Lastly, although the Nextbase 422GW now has a touchscreen, there are still a couple buttons present. Mainly the power button and the emergency record button. The emergency button is probably the most important one to use as this will allow you to manually save a recording into the protected folder so it won’t be overwritten later down the line.
Experience
Like most dash cams, the Nextbase 422GW is a set it and forget it device. Once you have it where you want it on your dash, you just leave it there and let it do its thing. The only time you’ll ever need to interact with it is if you want to pull a video off of it or if you want to manually save a video clip.
You can pull video clips off in several ways. You can eject the card and plug it into your computer and get the files off that way. You can also remove your dash cam and plug it in directly to a computer and do it that way if you don’t have a card reader. Lastly you can download the MyNextbase Connect app on your mobile phone and connect to your dash cam via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
You will want to download the MyNextbase Connect app on your mobile phone regardless as it helps open up extra features on the 422GW you won’t have unless you do. You’ll need it to enable Alexa and the Emergency SOS feature.
And that’s what makes the new Series 2 Nextbase dash cams different from the previous generation and that’s Alexa. With Alexa enabled, you can talk to your dash cam like any other Alexa device. You do need to be connected to the MyNextbase Connect software to use it though as well as the Alexa app to pair the device. It’s a neat thing to have, being able to use Alexa while in your car, but unless you really use Alexa on a daily bases, you might not use it at all. My digital assistant of choice is the Google Assistant so having Alexa in my car wasn’t as big a deal as it probably should have been.
Aside from that, the Nextbase 422GW is a step up from their previous generation of mid-range dash cams. I really like the touchscreen as it cleans up the back part with much less buttons and the new Click&Go mount I think is much better made than before.
In terms of video quality, the new QuadHD resolution allows for much better video quality than the 1080p, but not quite as good as their range topping 4K video output on the 612GW.
Final Thoughts
Nextbase has another great addition with the 422GW. While not their top of the line version, this one already has much better features than many other top of the line dash cams. I don’t know of any other dash cams out there that have touchscreens nor any at the moment that support Amazon Alexa. Also the switch to QuadHD already makes this loads better than all the other cams out there that still record at just 1080p.
These alone already make the Nextbase 422GW one of the best dash cams out there and hopefully later down the line we’ll be able to test out the optional second cam and see how it works as a total package.
