Akiko Kumagara—November 30, 2020
Disclosure: I received this product for free. I am not, however, obligated to review the product positively, or at all. My free receipt of the product does not and will not influence my opinion thereof. This camera is a solid piece of kit for the $40 price tag, and is often discounted with coupons for even lower prices. I am very impressed by its performance and it easily edges out most competing cameras in the $30-40 range. I upgraded from an old Logitech webcam that only did up to 800x600, and the improvements are vast. The picture is far more vivid and crisp. While the 1080p video quality on this camera isn't the best in class, it's quite good at what it does. If you can bump it down to 720p, most of the glaring faults of the camera are minimized and for small video windows (such as PIP for streams) I would definitely recommend going this route. I've also used this product for face-tracking via a few applications with great results, notably FaceRig and FaceRig's Live2D Module. If that is your reason for buying a camera right now, this is a brilliant option. You can't go wrong with this camera for that use, and it may save you a few dollars from getting something you don't need. Now the bad: The privacy cover is a nice inclusion. I haven't had any significant problems with it but it is quite flimsy and I'm not surprised that some other reviewers have. If that was their reason for picking this camera, I'm sure they feel a bit slighted. I'm not impressed, but it's also not the reason I wanted the camera, so I'm not disappointed either. The microphone. Oh boy... well, webcam microphones don't have a history of being fantastic, and this is no exception. If you plan to do anything more than Zoom calls or Skype with this camera, spend a few extra dollars on a headset, modmic, or USB desktop microphone. Even a cheap one will outperform this camera's integrated microphone significantly. Again, not what I wanted the camera for, but I would be let down if it was. Good uses: - Face recording for blogs/PIP streaming - Face-tracking in software that supports it - Taking photos using the Windows 10 Camera app or other applications that support it. Poor uses: - Quality audio recording. It's not happening. Sorry. - Fullscreen 1080p video recording. Quality is not fantastic, and this is where it shows the most. Thank you, Amcrest, for allowing me the opportunity to test your product. I will continue to use your brand going forward, and I hope that you will continue to improve in the webcam department... there's room to grow :) but this is by no means a weak start. Read more
Bushwh@ck—January 19, 2021
Working remote seems to be the norm now for most people and not the exception to the rule. Most people also have laptops which have built-in cameras, which will suffice for most people who are in video meetings regularly. I am leading meetings, trainings for the employees, tutorial videos or working with outside vendors so video quality is important to me as I am in meetings on average 4-5 times a day, 5 days a week. I use a 2020 13” Macbook Pro Retina with Touch Bar as my daily driver and for whatever reason Apple has yet to upgrade the built in webcam from 720p. It seems like a first world problem but in a world where everything is now 1080p and up (4k, 8k, etc) 720p can stick out like a sore thumb. My Macbook Pro plugs into two large 27” external monitors which is where I host my documents and participants in meetings. When I am looking at one of those external screens I am not looking at the built in web cam and monitor (due to its smaller size) so people give me feedback that they think I am distracted or not interested or “making eye contact” when in reality I am actively engaged in the meeting. This webcam plugging in via USB allows me to set it on my main external monitor and solve the problem I have in meetings and not use the built-in monitor. It’s also nice due to the fact that it has the hinge on the back which helps prop it up on the top of my monitors and in my use on several different monitors (Macbook Pro screen, iMac and external HP monitors), all very thin bezel and not very thick depth wise, it had no issue staying put and not moving. It has a privacy screen that I can flip up or flip down when I am not using it, and it also has a built-in microphone, which for the purposes of this review I did not use because my main audio input are my Airpod Pros. This was tested briefly and my initial impressions were acceptable but sounded a bit tinny compared to my AirPods which had much fuller sound (but also was closer to my face). My major issue with the web cam actually has to do with the lighting or exposure. This webcam comes with no software so whatever you get is whatever you get which in some cases may not be exciting. A few locations were just dark with brighter lighting. Amcrest provides no software to account for this and they leave you to find your own solutions. Zoom thankfully has an “adjust for low-light” functionality which helps to fix this in that platform, but good luck if you have lighting issue corrections on another platform that doesn't provide correction tools. In this case, my Macbook Pro’s built-in camera actually has vastly superior exposure and handles low light situations better. When I've had lighting issues, I turned on the lights in my room and could not get decent enough lighting without it looking like shadows on my face. It does not matter if it was incandescent or fluorescent. It was just dark. In some cases only time I could get it to look somewhat decent was exposing the room to direct sunlight and that light was bright enough to give me decent lighting for a meeting. For a room without windows this may not be possible for some without one of those “selfie lights” to help light your face. I found an external software solution for Mac called “iGlasses” that does exposure, brightness, contrast but when boosting the brightness, the background sometimes gets washed out. Compared to my built-in camera, the colors are more robust and full when this occurred. I would recommend this camera to someone who is looking for an affordable solution for a computer that does not have a camera or has a laptop with external monitors and needs to relocate their camera to a “main” monitor that is not the built in one. The built-in lighting quality might be good for some but those who care about quality, like myself, might find themselves tweaking their settings (in third party software) each time they are in a new environment to get what they want, which most other cameras seem to do automatically on their own. My only additional advice would be to ensure to have a window with bright natural light or a decent light setup if you don’t have a window or are video chatting at night. But this camera is 100% worth the purchase compared to similarly priced products and I have been recommending it to my colleagues as a good camera! Read more
