Razor Kio Pro Review: beats your laptop’s webcam, but at a higher cost

Razer has so far released a swath of products during the epidemic, but its new Kio Pro may have a broader appeal to all of them. This is a new $ 199 web camera that looks like a closed lens with a mirrorless camera, intended to give Logitech’s Brio some good competition in the specs. If you value 4K capture and Windows Halo authentication, the four-year-old Bryo is still the ideal choice, but the Kio Pro is no slash, optionally streaming or recording 1080p footage at 60 frames per second with HDR mode Is able to Which is displayed at 30 frames per second. Razor’s new webcam is a more compact option, and has some other features that may make it worth considering if you want more and more high-end webcams to join a zoom call.

The Kio Pro is being positioned as a good option for jumpers in a meeting and those who have hobbies or careers broadcasting their faces. It is supporting that claim with some features that I have been able to examine in the last few days. One of them is its Adjustable Area (FOV), allowing you to swap between 80 degrees for a tight crop of your face, a 90 degree shot, or a super-wide 103 degree. The latter option is good if more than one person is in the shot or if you want to show your living space.

You can adjust these settings and more from within Razer’s Synapse, although outrageously, that software didn’t always reflect the changes to the settings in the camera preview. Surprisingly, I had to join the zoom call to see the changes taking effect. I understand that there are people who don’t want to fuss with software, and so you know, it’s a plug-and-play device for Windows 10 and MacOS. That said, it will be on a fixed FOV, and the suite of settings that I detail below won’t be available to you until you find the razor’s software.

This webcam features a 2.1-megapixel CMOS IMX327 autofocus sensor with f / 2.0 aperture covered in a sheet of Gorilla Glass 3, which is a strange feature for the camera that does not work. It uses Sony’s Starvis technology commonly used in security cams, which makes it good at extracting details in low light and balancing light sources for a true life. I was impressed with my ability to automatically create awesome lights in my basement studio apartment (well, with some small turns from me in the brightness and saturation departments). Therefore, I think people with ideal lighting will fare better and probably won’t have to adjust the settings.

During some zoom calls with Kio Pro, none of the participants were blown away by visual fidelity. However, he commented that it is remarkably smooth and more detailed in terms of color accuracy than any laptop webcam, and especially the lighting conditions of my apartment (almost all artificial lights, with little natural light Is), my picture looked lively.

Even with a bright window behind me that is usually more exposed to any laptop’s webcam, this camera balanced my apartment’s light without taking it out of the background or leaving it out of detail did. If you are a game streamer with a vibrant set of colorful LEDs installed around your rig, this feature should be beneficial for you as well.

Autofocus works relatively quickly, and it doesn’t have to be long spent clearing the shot when I placed an object close to the sensor, then pulled it so that it would refocus on my face. However, the autofocus jumps too much, hunting for a clear shot, even though I’m barely moving. This was probably the most annoying part of the experience for me, but it’s a small consolation that Synapse sets you to manual focus if you don’t plan to move all of that.

This webcam has ubiquitous microphones, although I recommend equipped with a dedicated microphone or a headset instead. What’s built is the Kio Pro is good in a pinch, and my voice has a good amount of bass and clarity, but it’s a bit quiet and echo-y by default.

Razor Keo Pro is a capable webcam with some distinctive features. At $ 200, it clearly cannot counter the fidelity of a DSLR or mirrorless camera that has been reinstalled as a webcam or with a modern smartphone. But for the cost, it needs to be better than Logitech’s Brio released in 2017. Instead, Razor built a similarly priced webcam with fewer features. If webcams ever become harder to find in stock as they were in early 2020, then it would be nice to have another option on the market. But currently, it is difficult to recommend this model outright.

Photography / Reporter Door by Cameron Faulkner

Update February 24, 11 am Added photo samples from Kio Pro, both from Google Meeting video calls and more directly via VLC.