Anker C200 PowerConf Webcam Review: A Comprehensive Comparison

hey there youtube folks as you can see i've got one two and three cameras running to record this uh video and what

i'm doing actually is uh testing out an anchor c200 powerconf webcam so the folks at anchor were kind enough to send

this to me they didn't they're not paying me for it they're not i don't know if i even get to keep this thing

but they send it to me to review for channel my channel and so i thought it'd be an interesting comparison of the c920

logitech camera that i do have the iphone 13 that i'm using with re-incubate software's camo software

and just see how all three compare in what i use uh here in my office with some natural lighting or a light

overhead a bit of a natural light window in front of me and yeah see how they compare

so before you can use it even though i am actually already using it i'm just going to show you how it looked coming

out of the box so you can see it came in a nice little box and nothing too fancy with that very

well packaged a little difficulty getting the box open and apart possibly due to my weak feeble hands

[Music] eventually i did get it though i think there we go

[Music] there's the anchorwork software disclaimer that you need to go download

if you want to be able to adjust settings on the camera there's the manual

i didn't open this part because i skipped the manual [Music]

nice little usb a cable [Music]

not too long but long enough that it worked for my situation anyways but nice that there's a separate cable

so you can use a longer cable if you prefer and then the plastic wrapping to keep

everything looking nice that i fumbled around with a bit let's speed this up there we go

you can see the nice little foot or whatever they call that for the cameras some nice padding on there to keep it

firm and stuck to whatever you put it to and me trying to show off the usb connector in the camera the privacy

shield and the switch works really well very easy to tell that it's off

obviously it's a little bit i guess i'm colorblind so i think that's a red dot which usually signifies that something's

recording so don't get thrown off by that by the way it's very firm it feels

strong it's it's not like a flimsy little clip and then just show it how compares the

mounting of my c920 logitech c920 camera that i've had for a number of years don't mind the dust and then how that

compares with mounting the anchor c200 camera on didn't feel as tight as the c920 but it

definitely didn't feel like it was going to fall off by any means because it doesn't have as much to support so

easier to set up and position i would say than the c920 so as you can see i've got my iphone 13

pro is a little off to the side so it's not actually ideal sort of comparison of apples to apples if that works but logic

c920 is like almost a 10 year old camera i think at this point it's very old anyways i've actually been thinking

about getting a new camera just because i was wanting to do up my streaming capabilities a bit i like using the

iphone 13 with camo um to be able to stream and things like that but it does add complexity in terms of having to

configure and set up my phone it's my only phone i don't have a bunch of iphone devices to use as cameras

or ipads or whatever so uh the c200 from anker definitely seems like a nice option for upping my streaming quality

without having to break the bank so far i've been using it just with the built-in like mac os stock drivers and

things like that they do have some software that they recommend using and so i'm just going to

try downloading that now and see how that works [Music]

we will accept and of course it wants camera access let's upgrade the firmware this might

mess with the recording i better stop the recording just to make sure

so we'll all judge this together i guess you're judging it as you're watching this um just as an explainer i guess

there's just one overhead light here there's a window in front of me that has some lines on it that i've got closed

i'll open those in a bit just to see how that compares i'll try turning off the lights maybe even just to see a little

bit lower light on how that compares and uh so let's just quickly run through what we've got here i'm not going to log

in for now but um just your basic software settings there probably some dials for okay so we can

go up to 2k this is where i was wondering so we can go out to 65 down to 65 degree focused

78 degree and 95. the bit of shake that you see is my desk it's a sit stand desk and then the

monitor shaking and then your basic device information

serial number let's see i always hate messing with these things

because then i think i don't know what i'm actually looking at and whether it's any good or not so

just to see you can dial down the saturation get rid of all colors dialing up the contrast you can see it

doing a little bit of movement for focusing oh and there's a mic built in omnidirectional and a directional pickup

which if you're using this for a podcast or webcam or uh like a zoom call anything like that definitely would

recommend putting it in directional pickup assuming you're oh

okay so you can see that killed the camera for some reason i don't know if that's normal it might

be a bug because i'm using screenflow to record all of this and that's possibly what's going on as well ideally the

camera would still stay alive even though you're switching uh mic modes but what i was saying is i would recommend

keeping it in directional mode if it's just you in a room talking to a camera omnidirectional which you can see like

180 degree like sort of spin out from the front of the camera you would want to use if maybe it was a group call that

you were on or maybe you were standing back from the computer or back from the camera and uh wanting to you know maybe

you're doing a demo a cooking show or something you're sort of moving around but just as the names imply directional

is going to be like straight on with the camera and omnidirectional is around the front of the camera if you're behind the

camera it's not going to pick up as much and so that's where again keeping it in the directional pickup mode for most

people's use cases is probably going to be your best bet i'm not really going to test that much because here on my

channel anyways and for podcasters i just don't trust any sort of webcam microphone to be able to do a good job

or as good a job as some sort of usb microphone that's going to be in your face i they're great for uh like

zoom calls things like that i think that's fine saves you a lot of complexity in terms of setting up a

microphone but if you're going to do any sort of live streaming podcast recording um video reproduction work or whatever

do not rely on a webcam's audio sorry okay so yeah like i said we can change

the resolution we can change the angle in the frame uh and so it's

good good to have those options in in the software obviously and uh and especially that compared to

logitech's camera which again is quite old at this point but the software for that is very difficult to come by not as

easily supported uh as apple updates the operating systems and things like that one little issue i just realized is that

because i had the software running and again this might be just because i'm doing screen recordings and all sorts of

complicated audio capturing but because i had the software for anchor running and then when i quit that it actually

quit the camera's ability or or screenflow's ability to record the camera so that camera i lost as soon as

i started doing other tests so something to be aware of i guess if you're configuring it maybe for a zoom call you

quit the software then zoom might not be able to find the camera and you might have to just restart zoom or restart a

recording if you're using it for a recording so um i probably wouldn't use the software ongoing i'd set it and

forget it mostly but your mileage may vary so for now let's do some quick light tests just as best as i can do it

here in my office and see how the various cameras perform so first of all let's do uh darkness

so not very dark obviously as best as i can do here it's 11 30 or so in the afternoon or morning

and uh you won't get too much darker than this as far as what i can do but just show

you how the c920 the c200 and the iphone 13 all perform in slightly lower light situations

um yeah now let's go for super bright so this is with window fully open uh

like i said it's about 11 30 and sun isn't like directly pouring into the video into the window that's not a video

um but pretty close and so i would definitely not uh work with it this wide open and white and bright um but this

gives you an idea of a guess of how the cameras would perform in higher brighter light scenarios as well

and uh yeah again i can't see them right now so i'll watch it back and edit not a professional

hardware reviewer person as you can tell all right let's go back to normal okay so this is about where i normally

have my office set up in terms of lighting and windows and whatever my initial impressions of the c200 are

just from a hardware standpoint it's nice that it's small compact just a barrel like basically the camera view

um our camera itself is all that takes up in terms of hardware space especially as compared to the c920 which had sort

of like a speakery microphone look that's wider and took up a lot more space

over the top of the monitor and i like the privacy shield option that you can turn that on and off if you want to uh

for those who are privacy inclined and uh yeah and the compactness the the the fact that the cable comes off the back

as i showed in the unboxing video um you know that you can replace that cable get a longer cable if you want to

that's a very nice option to have that again the c920 didn't have and and just even being that little bit

higher resolution options um i think makes it a worthwhile upgrade from the c920 if you're looking for a newer

camera like i am and uh we'll see how it compares i guess if i ever get other cameras to compare

it to but these are the ones i have for now i didn't bother testing my macbook pro built-in facetime camera because

they're better than they used to be but they're still not going to be as good as a dedicated lens unfortunately sorry any

apple fan boys out there um but i just don't think that they can work that well having the option for it

with a built-on built-in microphone uh in a webcam is great again in a pinch if you're traveling maybe and you just need

to throw it on and use that uh in the wide spectrum microphone mode to be able to record an

interview with somebody that you just literally happen to have an opportunity for in that moment that's a great option

to have and uh appreciate them investing in the you know development and production of that kind of audio

quality all right as you can tell not a professional reviewer by any means so if there's

anything i've left out that you'd love to hear about feel free to throw in the comments below i'd love to try and do

another video if i can and if i have the camera for longer and uh follow along for more uh

tips and tricks on audio production work for podcasts and video and live streaming hobbyist

person here like maybe yourself or if there's questions you have about things like audio hijack and there's a new

version of audio hijack that just launched that i want to get a video out for as well

and a bunch of other fun stuff so feel free to follow along if that interests you thanks for watching have a great day

bye [Music] you