USB webcams have stagnated for a long time, but recently there has been some new kids on the block who appear to be fixing many of those older flaws. A lot of USB webcams don’t actually do any processing and use the standard webcam systems in the OS to show video. Now whilst that works well for lower resolutions it is 2024 and 1080p is a low resolution these days and that is realistically the highest a webcam can operate if it doesn’t process anything. This has led to many webcams not actually changing in ages (decades even Logitech cough) and the prices remain stubbornly high for what you are actually getting as hybrid and home working really needs a webcam to work. As many laptops come with webcams, albeit poor quality ones, the market for better webcams remains pretty large, but unfortunately, many people still have poor older webcams which they just continue to use. Enter the Anker C200 which is a budget offering that improves upon many older webcams – heck it even has mpeg output, but with the caveat of latency introduced to go with the better quality. If you use the inbuilt mics then that isn’t a problem, but for people livestreaming well it can be much harder to overcome!
The Anker C200 is reasonably priced at around £60 in the UK, but can often be found for under £50. For that you get a 2k capable webcam (though 1080p is better quality often) with some decent mics included. Also it has a USB-A to USB-C cable but you can easily replace that with C to C if you wish, has a nice easy to see shutter for privacy and a half decent mount. Of course there is a standard screw mount on the bottom too for mounting on a tripod or whatever system you use. As you can see, the picture quality in decent light is good, that is straight out of the camera with no tweaks and in 2k resolution. Also you can see in the above shot that resolution and angle and anti-flicker are all easily adjusted (angle = field of view). There have been regular updates too, so all good there. Comparing this product to an equivalent Logitech is a no brainer, with better software and features and well better image and sound quality! Now it isn’t all rosy – 1080p is decent, but it needs some tweaking especially in low light, and the latency involved with switching to mpeg compression, which helps tremendously with the overall picture quality especially at 2k needs to be managed with a delay if you use a different mic for example means that there is some management needed in a multiple webcam setup. However for the price, the quality and ease of use outweigh those. The next step up is something like the recently announced Obsbot Meet2 and that is at least double the price, though is also a 4K camera.
So in summary a decent webcam, worth the money and a welcome upgrade from the webcam built in with your laptop and much better than similar Logitechs (for example). However much, much better cameras are coming out at around the £130 mark that do much more, with better quality and in 4K. So do you have say 2 of these are 1 4K camera. Tough choices, and I guess it depends on what you need as many livestreams are still only 1080p (Twitch get your act together!)
Anker AnkerWorks C200 webcam
Ankers 2k capable USB webcam offers decent features, image and sound quality at an affordable price and is a step up from similar products from Logitech. Worth it for 1080p footage
Pros
Easy to use
Good price
Sturdy build and ergonomics
Cons
Still suffers from poor standard usb webcam quality and if you use mpeg has high latency
The privacy shutter is good but if the webcam is positioned high up it is difficult to operate
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