Webcams to check out for 2021 – CNET [CNET]

March 8, 2021 Thomas Giboney technology

Having a decent webcam only used to matter for business travelers, long-distance partners and other geographically challenged communicators. But these days, so many of us are working from home, schooling remotely and socializing from afar that this once second-string class of products have been thrust into the limelight. For most of 2020 you simply couldn’t get a decent one thanks to supply shortages and spiking demand due to the pandemic. Now the crunch has eased, making this a good time to step up to a better model you couldn’t find before.

Choosing an appropriate webcam isn’t that difficult: Market-leader Logitech makes most of the best models on the market, and you probably won’t go wrong just picking one that falls within your budget. Once you venture beyond known brands you can get lost in a sea of commodity models, though.

But you don’t need to worry about getting lost in specifications. Frame rate (30fps or 60fps), resolution (720p, 1080p or 4K) and microphone (mono or stereo) are about it. That doesn’t mean they don’t really differ. Some are better than others in less tangible ways, such as how well the automatic exposure, white balance or focus works. Those tend to be what differentiate the just-okay cheap models from better, more expensive ones.

How do you know what you need? Well, if you have nothing now, then anything’s a step up. Most laptops — even expensive ones like MacBooks — tend to still offer 720p webcams, while most of the standalone models on the market are 1080p. The latter usually look much better than the former, since the greater number of pixels makes your image look sharper. And because you can put a webcam on a tabletop tripod or perch it higher than the built-in webcam on a laptop, you can bring it closer to eye level which is much more flattering than the from-below-view most laptop webcams deliver.

Keep in mind, however, that even the best camera won’t necessarily deliver great video and sound on the other end; that can depend upon the quality and consistency of your network connection.

You may not even need to buy one, either. There are ways to use your phone or, if you have one, your camera as a makeshift webcam with an app or a utility from the camera manufacturer. Note that no matter how great their video might normally look, the software can throttle back the quality to reduce the load of information it has to send through the computer.

Furthermore, improving your environment with good lighting or a better angle can frequently improve the quality of your webcam video more than upgrading your camera.

This small list is our first round of picks; we’ll update it on a regular basis with more advice and more picks as we test more webcams, so stay tuned.