I started like you looking for the medium price spectrum. But I learned the things I want:
Built for extreme temperatures
Handle 2 video streams at a good (or at least decent) quality
Remain small
cost money. I ended up spending quite a bit more than planned. But I am happy because I did not make compromise.
I went with the Blackvue 650S. Actually bought a used unit to save money but I semi regret that because I do not have cloud support. But I saved about $100 so can not really complain.
https://www.amazon.com/BlackVue-DR650S-2CH-Recorder-Included-Support/dp/B06XWLPY1Q?th=1
There are other units that are similiar to this unit that I am sure I would recommend too (thinkware comes to mind), but at the time it seemed the Blackvue was best bang for buck. It has excellent tools to view video both on computer & phone. Somewhat easy to use settings.
My one complain with the Blackvue is in my experience the "sensitivity" preference for when to record in parking mode is too sensitive. Seems to be an ongoing problem with dash cams, would rather be too sensitive than not enough I suppose. Issue is this drives me to turn the sensitivity to 0 and rely solely on G forces to trigger recording.
Otherwise this camera delivers excellently with every promise made.
Driver perspective can not see the camera normally. (just noticed you can see the rear camera in this photo)
Small and sneaky
Passenger has super awesome view of my dash tech
This is first time hardwiring/mounting hardware in a car meaning even an amateur can do a decent enough job. Just be patient.