Webcam of the Year: Logitech Brio

The Logitech Brio is the most interesting webcam released in 2017. Capable of capturing at 4K resolution, it’s the webcam to have for those looking to get ahead of the curve.

At the heart of the Brio is a fantastic sensor. It easily captures all your facial details with exceptional clarity. Lowlight performance is equally impressive; noise wasn’t excessive even when my face was illuminated using just the monitor. Auto white balance and autofocus are spot-on as well.

In addition to its great image sharpness, photogenic streamers will be pleased to know that the Brio is also the first webcam to support HDR. This means that your new hair dye will be displayed in its full glory (on an HDR screen, of course).

Gear of the Year

Check out the complete list of all of our award winners for 2017. (The list will be updated daily as the winners are announced.)

For when there are multiple participants in the room, the Brio’s commodious 90° field of view can include everyone’s face equally. You can narrow the field of view to 65° or 78° for when you’re steaming alone.

The Brio’s basic driver software can change settings like contrast, saturation, and panning. But if you want the niftier features such as background blur and replacement, you’ll need to download the ChromaCam software developed by Personify. It’s a bulkier install, but it works well for the most part.

Some downsides of the Brio include a sky-high $200 price tag and an uncharacteristically shoddy clip. Though it’s nice to have 4K capabilities in a webcam, 4K video conferencing just isn’t mainstream yet. Nonetheless, for those who want to steam in 4K or need the sharpest image quality available, we can’t think of a better choice than the Logitech Brio.

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