RAZER KIYO PRO
Capturing the moment
WITH THE WAY the world currently is, webcams are rising in popularity. Video calls are essential to keep business on the go, to stay in touch with loved ones, or to use for the ever-growing streaming scene. The number of terrible built-in Nokia-brick-quality cams still seen in 2021 is madness. People want higher quality cameras for a more efficient and interactive video calling experience.
What Razer has delivered here is another fantastically crafted product to add to its arsenal. Build quality is vital for a brand; it allows the consumer to feel confident that their product is high quality. Unfortunately, this is becoming a dying breed, due to the harsh nature of fast, cheap, mass-produced technology. The Kiyo Pro breaks the mold of traditional webcams, however, by looking like a bridge camera lens. It’s quite large, but looks great sitting on top of an ultrawide monitor.
The camera comes with a foldable L mount, a six-foot braided USB type A-to-C cable, and a lens cover. The mount hooks on to the monitor easily, with plenty of adjustability—it’s covered in a soft rubber, ensuring that it doesn’t slide off or scratch your screen, which is wonderful attention to detail. Once the camera is on its mount, the pivoting control is great for angling it perfectly to your needs. The L mount also enables you to place it on a flat surface if you want to use the camera elsewhere. Both the camera and the mount have a traditional tripod mounting hole if you want to detach it. The quality carries on into the cable; it’s a great length and due to it being strong and braided, you don’t have to worry about any fraying or breaking issues. The lens cover is another nice addition for peace of mind, or for protecting the camera when traveling.
The Pro is a plug-and-play webcam, ideal for a quick setup. However, we do advise downloading Razer Synapse, because that will enable you to get the perfect settings for your environment. The camera records uncompressed at 1080p 60fps, and features a wide-angle lens, which includes three modes: wide at 104 degrees, medium at 89 degrees, and linear at 79 degrees. Straight off the bat, the video quality looks exceptional paired with the widest angle option. It has an autofocus, but you can digitally opt for manual in the software if you’d prefer. It’s a shame that there isn’t a manual focus on the lens itself, because at first glance, it appears there might be. One slight issue we found was that the image looked slightly cool in its default settings, but using the Razer Synapse application remedied this quickly.
LIGHT RELIEF
To get the perfect image, you need good lighting, of course, which brings us to the original Kiyo webcam. This featured a built-in ring-light, which we would have loved to have seen in the Pro model. Luckily, the Kiyo Pro features a great HDR mode—handy if you have areas of bright light, as it brings more depth and detail to these washed-out areas. This only works at 30fps, but it’s a good compromise, although it’s a shame it doesn’t also run at 60fps. The built-in microphone picks up audio well, but you are always going to get a better result from your headset or a stand-alone mic. It’s just a good inclusion for those people who may not choose to go down those routes, appealing more to the masses.
As a webcam, it offers great allaround performance: Video quality is crisp, the autofocus works well, and the wide-angle mode gets a lot in one shot. The styling is a nice homage to more traditional camera lenses, and the build quality is superb, like most Razer products. At this price, however, a 4K sensor might be expected, along with HDR mode at 60fps, plus the ring light featured on the original Kiyo model to make it a perfect webcam.