papalook PA452 Full HD 1080P Webcam with Microphone, Plug and Play USB Web Camera 65° View Angle for PC Computer Laptop Video Calling Online Class YouTube Zoom Meeting Teams, Compatible with Windows

My former camera, if you can call it that, is the camera/video recorder that's built in to my laptop. It's like 20ppi and my image when looking at myself is grainy, fuzzy, faded. In other words, I never looked better. So I installed this camera (the one I'm reviewing, duh). I did not like what I saw. I have this thing hanging from my chin that I never saw before (my wife said it's my "wattle" and that it's been there for several years now). I saw wrinkles. I saw gray hair. I saw my pores, for crying out loud! So, is the quality of the picture from this camera good? Yes, it is very good. But be forewarned -- you may see things on your face you've never seen before, and never wanted to see before. Oh, and it's very easy to set up -- plug in the USB and you're in business. It took longer to get the darned thing out of the Amazon box than it did to get it up and running, which was great, because it gave me extra time to trim my nose hairs.

I've been participating in online classes on Zoom & the camera works great, including the microphone.

Outside of using the built-in webcam on my Surface Pro laptop, it wasn't sufficient for the number of meetings I needed to participate in lately with Covid. So I bought 2 different brands from Amazon (Papalook PA452 [This review] and Amcrest AWC201-B) to try them out on my Dell Desktop, which has more computing power and 2 larger screens. After hooking up both webcams at the same time and trying them out side-by-side, I learned alot... unfortunately neither of these webcams fit my needs, so they'll both be returned and I'll continue my search.Pros of the Papalook PA452: Nicely packaged in a small box, with clear instructions inside. Overall the build quality seems good, it pivots well side-to-side, and it mounted to the top of my thin, widescreen monitor fine. It was extremely easy to install/setup, and Windows 10 plug and play recognized it immediately, allowing me to use it right away in Zoom and Google Hangouts. Plus it shipped/arrived very quickly.Cons: Although the microphone was sensitive and properly picked up all the spoken words, I found it to sound a little muffled/distant (although it was better than then other model). Maybe there's a 3rd party app/driver that could have helped with this, but out of the box, it was just ok. As for image quality, I admit I don't have the best lighting in the room, other than an overhead light built into the fan, so a big concern of mine was if the camera could compensate/color correct. Although this camera was better than the other model, in that it was clearer and adjusted for the yellow tint of the light bulb and brightened the image a little, it still wasn’t what I was hoping for in terms of auto correction. However the biggest issue and deal breaker for me, was the narrow field of view. I couldn’t find this anywhere on the website or box, but in the manual it lists it’s only 58-degrees, and I believe it. Although I don’t need it to see the entire room, this camera zooms in very close, almost like head and shoulder only. And when you turn of the “HD” option it gets even closer. Too close for my taste (the other was 70-degrees which makes a big difference). And as others had said, the On/Off button on the back doesn’t do anything. The only way to turn off the camera is to unplug the USB. And although I knew it didn’t come with a privacy cover, with the design of this camera, the lens sticks out of the body. So there’s no easy way to attach a 3rd party “stick on” cover (like a hinged toilet seat) or a piece of paper.Overall I’d say it’s decent for the money. But given the amount I’ll need to use it, and the type of calls I’ll been involved with for work, looks like I need to buy one of the more expensive models.

This is exactly the perfect for the TV Meets app

I bought two webcams to compare side by side, this one and one by Foscam which is admittedly cheaper. I was hoping to spend a little less and figured if they were the same side by side, I'd keep the cheaper one. This one came first and worked immediately. I agree with other posters that having a button on the back that just shuts off the tiny blue LED's on the camera isn't too valuable at all, but I must admit that the picture quality and frame rate are outstanding. I got the Foscam one today, plugged it in and couldn't believe how bad it was compared to this one. Needless to say the cheaper one went back and this one is staying with me.

It is a nice looking device - however it does not look like the picture. The photo looks like a silver webcam and it is actually shiny metallic black with clear acrylic around it like a frame. Still nice looking and not too big - under 3 wide I think. I wish that the focus was automatic. It was really fuzzy and poor quality until I looked through the manual and saw that I could manually focus the camera. I worked perfect. The image is a bit bright - wish I could change that or saturation. I will be using the webcam for Zoom or Skype meetings so I would want the ability to tweak the brightness or saturation on the virtual meeting platform.I have Windows 10 and just plugged in the USB cable and Windows 10 automatically installed the drivers. No problem with that! The manual says that if you have Windows XP/Vista/7/8 you will need to download the software. It does not come with that software (built in or a mini disk) but the manual includes an URL to get the software.I wish manufacturers would give us buyers more choices that black hardware. I really wanted a white webcam with a white USB cord... Because I thought I was buying a pure silver webcam and it is obviously black, I am taking away two stars. I don't think the image is spectacular. I have a Logitech C610 from 2011 that the image looks the same. (I gave my daughter the Logitech for working from home when her work had all workers work from home)

This wide view, HD camera provides a detailed panoramic image as promised. Unfortunately if you are a fat old guy who does not wear makeup (like me), you look a lot better on the old, cheap 720P camera. Also, your office needs to be tidy, or you need to move the camera nice and close, as you see a wide image of everything in the background, also in glorious color and clarity. Sometimes grainy and blurry are good things. My only real nit to pick is the software does not allow much in the way of adjustments for lighting and color. I'd like to see more features to adjust the aperture and color for various lighting conditions.