The Struggle is Real: A Review of the Logitech C920 and Razer Kiyo Webcams

As I sat down to test the Logitech C920 and Razer Kiyo webcams, I couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation. These two cameras have been touted as top-of-the-line options for video conferencing and streaming, but in my experience, they fall short in some very real ways.

First up is the Logitech C920. This camera has been a staple of webcams for years, and for good reason - it's reliable and gets the job done. However, when I tried to use its auto settings, I found that it struggled to keep focus on my face. The c920 is known for its soft image quality, which made it difficult to discern even the slightest movements or expressions. It's a shame, because this camera has been having in my testing a lot of trouble keeping focused on my face.

I tried to troubleshoot by adjusting the lighting and experimenting with different angles, but nothing seemed to make a significant difference. The Keogh grab, which I had set up as a makeshift tripod, was able to keep the camera steady, but even that couldn't overcome the c920's softness. It's honesty hard to tell what's going on behind the screen when you're staring at this webcam.

One thing did stand out, however - the Logitech C920 is still relatively focused on my face compared to other webcams I've tried. In terms of actual auto focus, it grabs onto my face fairly quickly. The c920 honestly the quickest of them all of the real camera it's manual focus this sucks and manual focus honestly isn't realistic for a webcam use case now I'm gonna turn off this backlight here and see how it affects the auto color now without that backlight I've adjusted nothing with the light in front of me this is starting to overexpose way more on the key oh so it is definitely doing some gain compensation and I think it expects the ring light to be on but it just can't handle it like that is this is barely on like if I turn it lower it will go off and I'm just way overexposed and this is like traditional I mean it's not traditional but it's like normal room lighting like I can't there's no reason to lower this so I'm actually gonna turn that back on because this looks friggin hideous.

I have to say, one of the biggest frustrations I've had with webcams in general is how they handle backlighting. It seems like no matter what I do, I end up overexposing myself or having to adjust settings that make me look unnatural. The Logitech C920 is no exception - it struggles to handle strong light sources, and the result is often an unflattering image.

Moving on to the Razer Kiyo, I was excited to see if this camera would be able to improve upon my experience with the c920. Unfortunately, it also fell short in some areas. While the Keogh grab does seem to have less trouble focusing on my face than the c920, the camera itself is still soft and lacking in definition.

In terms of auto settings, I found that the Razer Kiyo performed fairly well - it grabbed onto my face quickly and did a decent job of adjusting to changes in lighting. However, this was offset by the fact that it's manual focus. As someone who's used to using cameras with built-in autofocus, it was frustrating to have to constantly adjust settings to keep the image sharp.

One thing I will say is that the Razer Kiyo did handle backlighting better than the c920 - but only slightly. When I turned off the backlight, the camera performed much better, and I found myself looking more natural on screen. However, this was also offset by the fact that it seemed to overcompensate for the lack of light, resulting in an image that looked too bright and washed out.

Overall, my experience with these two webcams has left me feeling frustrated and disappointed. Both cameras have their strengths and weaknesses, but when it comes down to it, they just don't deliver on the promises they make. The Logitech C920 is a reliable option for those who need something straightforward, but it falls short in terms of image quality. The Razer Kiyo, on the other hand, has some nice features - like its built-in ring light and decent autofocus performance - but its softness and lack of definition hold it back from being truly great.

If you're in the market for a new webcam, I would recommend doing your research and reading reviews from multiple sources. Don't rely solely on the manufacturer's claims or sales pitches - look for honest feedback from other users who have tried out the camera. And if all else fails, consider using a different type of lighting altogether - it may not be the most conventional solution, but it can make a world of difference in terms of image quality.

As I wrap up this review, I want to emphasize that my experience with these webcams was just that - an experience. They may work fine for others, and they may have their own strengths and weaknesses. But for me, at least, they fell short of the mark. Maybe it's time to look elsewhere for a webcam that can deliver on its promises?

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enoh yay another USB 2.0 webcam with the same hardware I'm so happy to see such innovation in a thriving field this review is going to be a snarky one and if you haven't seen that already consider watching my short dear webcam company's video before watching this one let's go useful tech education and gaming nostalgia that won't put you to sleep get subscribed and turn on notifications so you won't miss the next guide i'm a postbox here to make tech easier and more fun and this is the razer kiya aur kya or ki oh I don't really know which I'm super late to the party on this review compared to my normal webcam coverage since Razer doesn't like sending out review units and they have a cult following and don't really need more in-depth coverage than hey guys it's Razer let's buy it so why bother I guess but better late than never for $99 you're basically getting a Logitech c920 2 webcam with a ring light built-in it has the same quality same quirks same problematic manual controls as the Logitech cams and even we're the weird smudgy interpolated 720p 60fps mode but at the top tier pricing of the c920 2 models logitech's models have some pretty messy pricing right now $89 for the c920 2x which is now the version that comes with the personify chroma cam background replacement software licensing or the more reasonable $58 for the model number 'less pro stream webcam which is just the c920 2 without the messy software the better choice in most cases to go with the $58 model honestly razors offering does keep the tripod mount on the bottom which has been very handy for me I've done quite a few streams with the kyo kayo now both for with gaming streams with additional light in front of my face like you see now and for my IRL streams up in the studio were the only other sources of light were behind my head the ring light is handy to have but its usefulness is limited by the crappy sensor in the webcam to use the full light to balance your face out with existing lighting the camera over exposes and you cannot compensate for this even with manual settings without basically making the rest of your scene pitch black for example we're on auto settings now if I crank this up I am just completely blown out and if I try to make it light my hand it just darkens everything which is kind of cool that it does that and honestly this is a cool look back here but using it like my face looks hideous right now similarly when using the ring light as your primary light source you have to you either have to dark of an image too grainy an image or too washed out of an image and neither of that is ideal this is the problem I ran into when I reviewed the marantz turret system a while back - it's a very similar setup with the exact same issues all of the tests you are seeing live are done with the ring light often with the China balls in my office on butwe I'm cutting in some test shots in order with a darker environment in order for you to see the environment with the ring light being the primary light source this is with Auto settings while live the light is useful to have in tight situations though and I haven't found it to be pretty actually incredibly useful for product shots where I specifically need a webcam fed into the stream such as mouse shots or keyboard shots over top of gameplay since I use black desk mats and often the products themselves are black the ring light can be quite handy there I have the Logitech c920 NC 922 webcam setup here as well along with the kayo and a good real camera so you can see the quality comparison but in most situations other than this weird yellow light here which I have in the background which I can turn off in a second it's almost identical to the c920 - like I'm fair I'm fairly certain this is just heavy this just has the Logitech c920 - hardware inside much like how the ripsaw capture card is just an Avery medial a gamer extreme with Razer branding this also means that if you try to use the game Ori 720p 60fps mode you get a smudgy ugly mess as its interpolating from some super low resolution to pull out this frame right just like the c920 - and unless your exposure is just right you're usually lucky to get smooth 30fps from webcams 80 you can see the exposure is actually not ideal for the c920 NC 922 here and so it's actually a little stutter if I flip on an LED panel let it compensate I'm a little overexposed but the motion smoothes up quite a bit still nothing compared to the 60fps of the real camera now as you can see here in this specific setup where I have some yellow light behind me but my lighting is white the keo does seem to get the best color balance and white balance out of the box compared to the other two webcams of the again these are on manual and that's nice if you have too much light in your scene like when I turn on this LED panel it honestly goes to crap and can't come and take the image and now the white balance is all kind of jacked but as is it's kind of nice but there is a little bit more yellow to me like my hair is not honestly that bright yellow it is compensating for that yellow light back there and this affects the saturation of my shirt here this is actually why I picked this shirt so you can see in the comparison it is very saturated in this webcam which is not going to compress well on a super low bitrate stream converse to that if I try to do some focus testing here you will see the QIOs seems to have the worst face detection autofocus of the camera so if I what what my goal here is because currently the keo is completely focused on my backdrop it is grabbing all of that and that looks super sharp so if I pull my face up here and block off the scene if I get close enough it'll focus on my face and you can see the details in my mustache and things like that if I back up enough you've been let it grab the background actually it may still be on the background now yeah let me grab the background then even if I cover it up it's gonna it's been having in my testing a lot of trouble keeping focused on my face or the c920 - does not seem to have as big of a problem with that and the c920 is just soft in general so it's honestly hard to tell I think it's actually still pretty focused on my face though it's the key oh that and I realized positioning that's part of this which is why I'm leaning over to make sure I'm centered and covering that bookcase but it has trouble really grabbing focus on my face now in terms of actual auto focus I put up to the Keogh grabs it fairly quickly c920 - fairly quickly c920 honestly the quickest of them all of the real camera it's manual focus this sucks and manual focus honestly isn't realistic for a webcam use case now I'm gonna turn off this backlight here and see how it affects the auto color now without that backlight I've adjusted nothing with the light in front of me this is starting to overexpose way more on the key oh so it is definitely doing some gain compensation and I think it expects the ring light to be on but it just can't handle it like that is this is barely on like if I turn it lower it will go off and I'm just way overexposed and this is like traditional I mean it's not traditional but it's like normal room lighting like I can't there's no reason to lower this so I'm actually gonna turn that back on because this looks friggin hideous and that's my weird point with this camera is in certain situations it does much better than the other webcams but in others it just goes to crap audio wise this review the entire time has been on the keel microphone now this is on the Logitech c920 2 microphone which runs quite a bit hotter than the key oh now this is the original c920 microphone which is kind of in-between the two microphones there and none of them are great to put in a pinch for a video call they work honestly this is probably the most blunt and snarky review of anything that I've ever written I'm quite annoyed with the sad state of the webcam market right now and razor saiping a cheap LED on existing webcams don't doesn't make me feel any better about it and so if you'd like less snark and to learn more in depth about my honestly vast experience in my opinions on webcams beyond this on the whole I have a webcam playlist in the video description where I have lots of videos covering webcams going back quite a few years check it out soon I'll have a video coming soon covering what I consider to be the ultimate webcam replacement setup as you can see right now which will be coming soon but it's definitely still a little bit more expensive than the razor keo I did want to add for a moment just adding this inin voiceover that I was pretty snarky here and I'm pretty frustrated with webcams on the whole and everything I said in this video is valid but as you would have observed and I did mention as I was going the default Auto settings for this webcam are a step above the other webcams they do it does stand out a little bit in terms of the color in terms of the white balance in terms of the performance on the whole they've clearly taken the standard webcam hardware and made just enough tweaking for it to work better on auto a lot of my experience and stuff you'll see in the live stream clips that I show in the video where when I was trying to like where I was in a manual or when I was in an overexposed situation so I was trying on auto so I was trying to use manual settings and tweak it or just use manual settings in the first place because auto weren't working out there is where the webcam reaches the same limitations as the others and falls apart and that is still a big frustration for me but if you're looking for one to just throw up on auto and have a handy light it's still decent it's just expensive for in my opinion the same webcam we've had going on for about six or so years now otherwise particle fillion links are in the description below that like button as always hit that button if you enjoyed the review subscribe for more tech content and I'll see you next time this video is sponsored by viewers like you our videos would not be possible without the generosity of those of you who contribute to one of our fan funding options be a donor box twitch subscriptions direct contributions via PayPal or patreon to join our inner circle and give behind-the-scenes looks at videos go to e+ vox.com slash support to learn more and join us on discord at e post voxcom slash discord thanksoh yay another USB 2.0 webcam with the same hardware I'm so happy to see such innovation in a thriving field this review is going to be a snarky one and if you haven't seen that already consider watching my short dear webcam company's video before watching this one let's go useful tech education and gaming nostalgia that won't put you to sleep get subscribed and turn on notifications so you won't miss the next guide i'm a postbox here to make tech easier and more fun and this is the razer kiya aur kya or ki oh I don't really know which I'm super late to the party on this review compared to my normal webcam coverage since Razer doesn't like sending out review units and they have a cult following and don't really need more in-depth coverage than hey guys it's Razer let's buy it so why bother I guess but better late than never for $99 you're basically getting a Logitech c920 2 webcam with a ring light built-in it has the same quality same quirks same problematic manual controls as the Logitech cams and even we're the weird smudgy interpolated 720p 60fps mode but at the top tier pricing of the c920 2 models logitech's models have some pretty messy pricing right now $89 for the c920 2x which is now the version that comes with the personify chroma cam background replacement software licensing or the more reasonable $58 for the model number 'less pro stream webcam which is just the c920 2 without the messy software the better choice in most cases to go with the $58 model honestly razors offering does keep the tripod mount on the bottom which has been very handy for me I've done quite a few streams with the kyo kayo now both for with gaming streams with additional light in front of my face like you see now and for my IRL streams up in the studio were the only other sources of light were behind my head the ring light is handy to have but its usefulness is limited by the crappy sensor in the webcam to use the full light to balance your face out with existing lighting the camera over exposes and you cannot compensate for this even with manual settings without basically making the rest of your scene pitch black for example we're on auto settings now if I crank this up I am just completely blown out and if I try to make it light my hand it just darkens everything which is kind of cool that it does that and honestly this is a cool look back here but using it like my face looks hideous right now similarly when using the ring light as your primary light source you have to you either have to dark of an image too grainy an image or too washed out of an image and neither of that is ideal this is the problem I ran into when I reviewed the marantz turret system a while back - it's a very similar setup with the exact same issues all of the tests you are seeing live are done with the ring light often with the China balls in my office on butwe I'm cutting in some test shots in order with a darker environment in order for you to see the environment with the ring light being the primary light source this is with Auto settings while live the light is useful to have in tight situations though and I haven't found it to be pretty actually incredibly useful for product shots where I specifically need a webcam fed into the stream such as mouse shots or keyboard shots over top of gameplay since I use black desk mats and often the products themselves are black the ring light can be quite handy there I have the Logitech c920 NC 922 webcam setup here as well along with the kayo and a good real camera so you can see the quality comparison but in most situations other than this weird yellow light here which I have in the background which I can turn off in a second it's almost identical to the c920 - like I'm fair I'm fairly certain this is just heavy this just has the Logitech c920 - hardware inside much like how the ripsaw capture card is just an Avery medial a gamer extreme with Razer branding this also means that if you try to use the game Ori 720p 60fps mode you get a smudgy ugly mess as its interpolating from some super low resolution to pull out this frame right just like the c920 - and unless your exposure is just right you're usually lucky to get smooth 30fps from webcams 80 you can see the exposure is actually not ideal for the c920 NC 922 here and so it's actually a little stutter if I flip on an LED panel let it compensate I'm a little overexposed but the motion smoothes up quite a bit still nothing compared to the 60fps of the real camera now as you can see here in this specific setup where I have some yellow light behind me but my lighting is white the keo does seem to get the best color balance and white balance out of the box compared to the other two webcams of the again these are on manual and that's nice if you have too much light in your scene like when I turn on this LED panel it honestly goes to crap and can't come and take the image and now the white balance is all kind of jacked but as is it's kind of nice but there is a little bit more yellow to me like my hair is not honestly that bright yellow it is compensating for that yellow light back there and this affects the saturation of my shirt here this is actually why I picked this shirt so you can see in the comparison it is very saturated in this webcam which is not going to compress well on a super low bitrate stream converse to that if I try to do some focus testing here you will see the QIOs seems to have the worst face detection autofocus of the camera so if I what what my goal here is because currently the keo is completely focused on my backdrop it is grabbing all of that and that looks super sharp so if I pull my face up here and block off the scene if I get close enough it'll focus on my face and you can see the details in my mustache and things like that if I back up enough you've been let it grab the background actually it may still be on the background now yeah let me grab the background then even if I cover it up it's gonna it's been having in my testing a lot of trouble keeping focused on my face or the c920 - does not seem to have as big of a problem with that and the c920 is just soft in general so it's honestly hard to tell I think it's actually still pretty focused on my face though it's the key oh that and I realized positioning that's part of this which is why I'm leaning over to make sure I'm centered and covering that bookcase but it has trouble really grabbing focus on my face now in terms of actual auto focus I put up to the Keogh grabs it fairly quickly c920 - fairly quickly c920 honestly the quickest of them all of the real camera it's manual focus this sucks and manual focus honestly isn't realistic for a webcam use case now I'm gonna turn off this backlight here and see how it affects the auto color now without that backlight I've adjusted nothing with the light in front of me this is starting to overexpose way more on the key oh so it is definitely doing some gain compensation and I think it expects the ring light to be on but it just can't handle it like that is this is barely on like if I turn it lower it will go off and I'm just way overexposed and this is like traditional I mean it's not traditional but it's like normal room lighting like I can't there's no reason to lower this so I'm actually gonna turn that back on because this looks friggin hideous and that's my weird point with this camera is in certain situations it does much better than the other webcams but in others it just goes to crap audio wise this review the entire time has been on the keel microphone now this is on the Logitech c920 2 microphone which runs quite a bit hotter than the key oh now this is the original c920 microphone which is kind of in-between the two microphones there and none of them are great to put in a pinch for a video call they work honestly this is probably the most blunt and snarky review of anything that I've ever written I'm quite annoyed with the sad state of the webcam market right now and razor saiping a cheap LED on existing webcams don't doesn't make me feel any better about it and so if you'd like less snark and to learn more in depth about my honestly vast experience in my opinions on webcams beyond this on the whole I have a webcam playlist in the video description where I have lots of videos covering webcams going back quite a few years check it out soon I'll have a video coming soon covering what I consider to be the ultimate webcam replacement setup as you can see right now which will be coming soon but it's definitely still a little bit more expensive than the razor keo I did want to add for a moment just adding this inin voiceover that I was pretty snarky here and I'm pretty frustrated with webcams on the whole and everything I said in this video is valid but as you would have observed and I did mention as I was going the default Auto settings for this webcam are a step above the other webcams they do it does stand out a little bit in terms of the color in terms of the white balance in terms of the performance on the whole they've clearly taken the standard webcam hardware and made just enough tweaking for it to work better on auto a lot of my experience and stuff you'll see in the live stream clips that I show in the video where when I was trying to like where I was in a manual or when I was in an overexposed situation so I was trying on auto so I was trying to use manual settings and tweak it or just use manual settings in the first place because auto weren't working out there is where the webcam reaches the same limitations as the others and falls apart and that is still a big frustration for me but if you're looking for one to just throw up on auto and have a handy light it's still decent it's just expensive for in my opinion the same webcam we've had going on for about six or so years now otherwise particle fillion links are in the description below that like button as always hit that button if you enjoyed the review subscribe for more tech content and I'll see you next time this video is sponsored by viewers like you our videos would not be possible without the generosity of those of you who contribute to one of our fan funding options be a donor box twitch subscriptions direct contributions via PayPal or patreon to join our inner circle and give behind-the-scenes looks at videos go to e+ vox.com slash support to learn more and join us on discord at e post voxcom slash discord thanks\n"