1. Best overall
2. Best premium webcam
3. Best travel webcam
4. Best midrange webcam
5. Best 4K webcam
6. Feature comparisons
7. Recent reviews
8. How to find the right webcam
9. FAQs
10. Why trust Laptop Mag
Laptop webcams are notorious for low-quality visuals, making you a pixelated mess on video calls. Fear not, hybrid working webcam warriors! Laptop Mag has years of experience separating the good from the grainy, and I can guide you to the best webcam for you, whatever your needs or budget.
Are you tired of looking like a 1950s broadcast? An external webcam is your key to sharper, more vibrant video calls. In today's blended workforce, having the best webcam possible improves your ability to communicate clearly and share ideas. From sprucing up business meetings to becoming a streaming pro, we've got you covered.
Looking for the best bang for your buck? The Logitech HD Webcam C920 remains a top choice, balancing quality and affordability. If you want more features, the incredible Insta360 Link webcam houses a built-in gimbal and high-resolution sensor. The ultra-compact 4K Opal Tadpole is a marvel of engineering that delivers excellent image quality while barely adding additional weight to your bag.
So, without further ado, here are the best webcams of 2024.
The Quick List
Best overall
This is the best webcam out there for most people. The image quality blows away anything you'll get in a laptop and it's available for well under $100. The Logitech HD Webcam C920 decimates the competition, and once you try it, it’s unlikely you’ll regret it.
Best premium webcam
The Insta360 Link is the right choice for anyone with a considerable budget. It'll cost you a pretty penny, but it offers 4K resolution, a solid pair of noise-cancelling microphones and great low-light performance.
Best travel webcam
The Opal Tadpole is a diminutive webcam that gives you stellar video quality when traveling. Most laptop webcams are terrible, but most external webcams are too big to easily fit in your laptop bag. Enter the 4K clip-on Opal Tadpole.
Best midrange webcam
The Anker PowerConf C200 is a good value that delivers high-quality imagery for a fraction of the cost of many other webcams and conference cams. Bonus: it comes with a physical shutter to keep the creeps out, which is great for home office users.
Best 4K webcam
The Logitech MX Brio 4K webcam delivers sharp video and stills with vivid colors. Utilizing a large 8.5MP Sony STARVIS CMOS sensor, you can rely on excellent image quality in any setting.
Best overall
The $60 Logitech HD Webcam C920 was an easy favorite. Images that we took with the 1080p camera were sharp, color-accurate and crystal clear. The C920's 78-degree field of view could comfortably fit two people in the frame for a teleconference. Software that comes with the C920 lets you implement filters, adjust the angle, use the webcam as a security camera and take photos to save to your hard drive.
This is by far the best webcam out there, and there’s no way any reasonable person could return to the terrible webcams that would be attached to a standard laptop. The Logitech HD Webcam C920 absolute decimates the competition, and once you try it, it’s unlikely you’ll regret it. Additionally, it’s great value. $60 for a webcam isn’t a considerably steep price to pay for a future of crisp and clear images.
See our Logitech HD Webcam C920 review.
Best premium webcam
While the first entry in this list balances quality and affordability, the Insta360 Link is the right choice for anyone with a considerable budget. It'll cost you $300, but it offers 4K resolution, a solid pair of noise-cancelling microphones and great low-light performance.
But what makes this webcam stand out in particular is that the camera is mounted on a gimbal that will actually move to follow you. Other webcams will simply zoom and crop the image when following the user, which results in quality degradation that the Insta360 Link does not suffer from. Its ability to follow the user with its AI Tracking setting is impressive, featuring a privacy mode and the ability to switch from a desktop-view to a top-down mode depending on the method in which its been mounted.
See our full InstaLink 360 review.
Best travel webcam
Sure your laptop's webcam is probably terrible, most are, but are you really going to bring a big external webcam with you everywhere? As a remote worker, I've been faced with this decision many times and I virtually never take one with me and just make do with subpar image quality. The Opal Tadpole webcam is finally the solution to this issue that so many frequent travelers have been waiting for.
The Opal Tadpole will remind you of the old clip-on iPod Shuffle and it is as dead simple to use as the Shuffle too with plug-and-play using the built-in USB-C cable. Opal Camera does sell a $25 "yoyo" travel case that can fully secure the Tadpole, but its cable also can be used to just loop it on your bag. It's so small you will never notice it in your bag, but you'll be thrilled you have it when you see the crisp clear image on your video call instead of the noisy garbled mess of your built-in webcam.
If you don't ever travel then by all means go with another option on this list like the Insta360 Link webcam above. You'll get more features and a better overall image thanks to a larger sensor, but when it comes to a travel-friendly go-anywhere webcam with quality that will blow your laptop webcam away, the Opal Tadpole is it.
See our full Opal Tadpole review
Best midrange webcam
Anker’s PowerConf C200 2k webcam is stylish, sturdy, affordable ($69.99), and comes with a physical shutter to keep the creeps out. What’s wonderfully disturbing about this Anker webcam is that it is on a par or superior to many of the far pricier webcams I have reviewed in the past two years.
The Anker PowerConf C200 is a bargain, that delivers high-quality images, and video for a fraction of the cost of many other webcams and conference cams. For $69.99 you’re getting a webcam that delivers crisp images that are color accurate in normal and low-light conditions with super-fast autofocus.
See our full Anker PowerConf C200 review
Best 4K webcam
If you're looking to prioritize a quality 4K image, the Logitech MX Brio 4K is the way to go. It'll cost you $200, but if you're willing to dish out the extra money, it's a level up from the more affordable options thanks to its 8.5MP Sony STARVIS CMOS sensor. Not only will this yield a better image in good lighting, but if you don't always have perfect control of your lighting, it will hold up better than the competition in less-than-ideal lighting conditions.
While Logitech's AI tracking is not bad, we would still recommend something like the Insta360 Link if tracking movement is a high priority for you. The built-in mic could also be better, but again, it should be an improvement over your laptop mic, just not as good as a dedicated mic.
See our full Logitech MX Brio 4K webcam review.
Feature comparisons
| Webcam | Resolution | Frame rate | Built-in Mic | Autofocus | Gimbal | HDR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logietch HD Webcam C920 | 1920 x 1080 | 30 fps | Stereo mic | Yes | No | No |
| Insta360 Link | 3840 x 2160 | 30 fps @ 4K, 60 fps @ 1080p | Dual noise-cancelling mic | Yes | Yes | Supported at 1080p and 720p |
| Opal Tadpole | 3840 x 2160 | 30 fps @ 4K | MEMS directional mic | Yes | No | No |
| Anker PowerConf C200 | 2560 x 1440 | 60 fps @ 2K | Dual-stereo mics | Yes | No | No |
| Logitech MX Brio 4K | 3840 x 2160 | 30fps at 4K, 60fps at 1080p | Dual Beamforming mic | Yes | No | No |
Recent reviews
Not every webcam we review makes it to this list, but that's not to say they aren't worth looking into. While some of the following webcams may not be the best in their category, that's not to say they aren't fantastic options.
How to find the right webcam
Regardless of the specs, the most important focus (pardon the pun) for a webcam is how crisp the image and video quality are. Combine this with the product's price, and you have an essential checklist of webcam priorities. However, there are a few other things to consider.
Perhaps you want your webcam to be as portable as possible. The Opal Tadpole would be a perfect choice for that purpose. If you need something high-end with excellent features like a noise-canceling microphone and AI Tracking, the Insta360 Link is a great pick.
Alternatively, you might desire cheap and high-quality, so the Logitech HD Webcam C920 (~$60) could be worth it for those needing a solid camera on a budget. Don't mind spending up? You can invest in a Logitech Brio 4K Pro Webcam for around $200. Although expensive, its incredible image quality could more than make up for it if you're interested in professional streaming.
FAQs
What webcam features do you need to look for?
If you're just using your webcam for video calls, virtual presentations, or livestreams, the key features will be resolution and frame-rate. The higher the resolution, the better the image quality. As far as frame-rate goes, while 60 fps is ideal at max resolution, a 30 fps 4K webcam is more than adequate for most video calls and streams.
If you'll be using your webcam in more dimly lit spaces or while moving around, you may want to look for advanced features like HDR and AI face tracking.
What webcams are best for streaming?
While many of the top Twitch and YouTube content creators use mirrorless cameras for their streams, any of our top Webcams will work just fine for casual streams. In fact, unless you plan to make your reaction feed the highlight of your stream, you just need a decent FHD (1920 x 1080p) webcam for most streaming purposes.
How to set up a webcam?
Every webcam is different, but generally speaking you'll connect the webcam to your laptop or desktop, then make sure its recognized by your operating system. You may need to update or download drivers or specialized software to get the most out of your webcam's range of features.
Why trust Laptop Mag
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We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.
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