PowerConf C300

First, fair warning, it's early days and I've only been using this for a day, but initial impressions are nothing short of excellent. I'm a big fan of Anker kit and own several of their products, all of which have performed very well. This new webcam is no exception. Surely everyone must be aware of how hard it is to get hold of a decent webcam at the moment, with the world and his dog working from home. I've been using an old Logitech C270 which is no more than average in ideal lighting and pretty poor in low light. And the ubiquitous 'top-tier' C920 version has been out of stock or stupidly priced for the last 12 months. So along came the Anker C300 and I decided to pull the trigger on it quickly before this becomes a rare item too! It feels quality from the outset, with a nice solid feel and integrated mount so it can be used on top of a monitor, standalone, or attached to a tripod. There is a supplied USB C cable that is detachable from the webcam, which is a nice touch. There's also an included USB type A adapter should your computer not have the newer USB C connection. There's a white LED to the right of the lens which indicates when the camera is on, but if you're particularly paranoid, Anker have thoughtfully included 2 stick-on privacy covers. Plugging it in, the C300 was recognised immediately by Windows 10 and worked without any drivers. Although you'll definitely want to download the suggested 'AnkerWork' app as it provided a camera firmware update straight out of the box. The same software also allows you to tweak the camera settings to adjust the resolution, FPS (30 or 60), viewing angle, HDR, and auto framing features. These can be all changed individually, or you can pick one of the presets (Personal, Streaming, or Meeting). Now on to the important bit - the imagine quality. Wow! Maybe I'm just easily impressed having been used to a barrage of average laptop webcams, but the C300 image really stands out. In 1080p mode it's sharp, bright, and has none of the usual webcam colour problems, giving a very natural picture. Your Zoom/Teams meetings will never look the same again! Autofocus seems accurate and speedy, and the 'follow' function actually seems to work well. Whilst I use a standalone USB microphone for my calls, I did give the on-board mic a go, and was very surprised at how good it sounded. It did a good job of isolating background noise too. Certainly if you haven't got another microphone, this will be more than adequate for your average conference call. I used it for one of my work calls, and had no complaints. So overall then, Anker have done it again. Another top quality product from them to shake up what has been a very stagnant market. The only downside is the relatively expensive price tag, but in this case you definitely seem to get what you pay for. To be completely transparent, I did manage to get a hefty £30 'early bird' discount on it, which made it quite a bargain.

I was toying with getting another Logitech cam, as the one I have is a few years old now. I did some research and kept coming across this Anker C300 in various review places. Download the software from Anker and install, then plug the camera in and check for firmware updates, update the camera and it all just works beautifully. Fabulous camera, the picture quality is outstanding, and my main room is fairly low light and honestly, seeing the video output from the camera, you would never know, in addition, the sound/mic quality is fantastic, no issues being heard, and I tested the sound/video with a test run first and as I say, the sound was as clear as when using my laptop. This camera is an absolute steal for the current price, it has some really very useful features, such as being able to switch between 30fps and 60fps, being able to change the view angle depending on what you need, and the autofocus which basically does auto follow and zoom and all this at a similar price for alternative cameras from other vendors that lack some of the features the C300 has. I am very happy with the camera and I would absolutely recommend it, at the least make sure you have it on your short list.

Having purchased the original Logitech Brio 4K on its release and had no end of problems with it due to compatibility issues with the Asmedia USB 3.0 & 3.1 chipset and Logitech not bothering to fix these issues, after so many years this product landed from Anker. After watching the many different reviews on the C300 via YouTube, Amazon sent me an email regarding my recent studio light purchase and search history asking if I would be interested in the All new Anker PowerConf C300. So with the discount offer I made the purchase. Was it worth the expense ? Yes and No. Out of the box windows didn’t recognise it was plugged into the USB 3.0 port. No big deal so I downloaded the software, ran the installer and within a couple 2 mins the camera came alive although it had some issues with operating. A quick click on the firmware update showed it was out of date and needed the current version, 5-10 mins later the new firmware was installed and the camera worked. But…. The AI tracking is hit and miss and at times just wonders off, however that’s not a big deal for me, but the biggest problem is no windows hello support which I find odd and this is a brand new product with cutter edge AI yet no support for the security system of Windows 10. Maybe Anker will update the firmware for this to be enabled. Is this better than the Logitech Brio 4K considering the price ? Well yes and no. Yes because the image is clear and you don’t to be in a bright room unlike the Brio. No because it’s on 1080P 60 providing you don’t use the HDR mode in which case your stuck to 1080P 30. Would I recommend this product. Yes, but from Anker direct unless you don’t care where it comes from.

I bought this for video calls while working from home. I like to use 2 full sized monitors which leaves little room on my desk for me to have my laptop open to use the inbuilt webcam, so I keep this closed and out of the way. For some bizarre reason, my employer have disabled the use of Logitech webcams, which would have been my usual choice, so I went with Anker (after being disappointed by trying a couple of the cheap ~£30 webcams available on Amazon) as they're a reputable brand. I work right next to a big window which lets in a lot of light. The cheaper webcams I tried from Amazon struggled to deal with the light from my monitors even when I had the curtain closed to limit the amount of light from my window. I had to turn off one of my monitors and bring up a dark background on my remaining monitor so it wasn't putting out too much light. The Anker webcam deals well with the bright light that comes in from the window at the side of my desk and from my monitors, and also works well in a low light setting. The picture quality of the webcam is great, as is the quality of the inbuilt microphone, which can be used even for voice-only calls. I was reluctant to spend this amount on a webcam for work, but I'm really glad I have now as it's exceeded my expectations and made my life a lot easier (as I no longer have to retrieve my laptop from its hiding place when I realise everybody else has switched on their video for a call). Highly recommend.

I work as an engineering manager, meaning my life is meetings. Working remotely means I need very decent, easy to use cameras. The C300 was an experiment I did as a logitech fan to go outside the "default" webcam maker for me. I was very pleasantly surprised. The camera delivers very impressive and pleasing visuals, with great auto focus, software based tracking (auto cropping I think, but its not noticeable, no drop in quality). Very good HDR, not too obvious but at the right level. Massive improvement over my previous c920, and definitely my regular Thinkpads webcam. UPDATE: It did break down after 8 months or so, but Anker's support is top notch. A few days of chats and they sent a new one. Yes, I am an anker fanboy (and soundcore), but in fairness, their balance of quality and support is so far a winner.

This is the second of these cameras. Previously I was a loyal buyer of Logitech C920 cameras for years - they are still very good - but suffered supply issues earlier this year and thought I would try an Anker camera. The Anker brand seems to be pushing out some very good products at the moment. The Anker C300 is excellent. Quite chunky relative to other cameras but there's lot's more going on. THE LIGHTING IS AWESOME with a clear picture even in a darker room or with a bright window behind the subject. The subject tracking is also much better than others I have used - working well with more than one person and having an uncanny knack of properly framing the whiteboard in our room when we stand up to work through it.

Original Review (see updated edit below): Really sad to give this one a bad review. I was keeping up with Anker's announcements and was eagerly awaiting this webcam since working from home has become such a big part of my life now, I thought a nice webcam might be a welcome addition to my home setup. I am a huge fan of Anker products and the quality/pricing of their products. Recently they have broken into the 'higher end' tech market and this new product offering follows that pattern, pricing slightly above similar products from already well established brands in the market such as Logitech. Seeing an abnormally high price tag and considering Anker's brilliant quality on the range of other products I have bought from them, I had high expectations for this, and maybe that's why I feel let down The quality of the housing and mounting system is up to regular Anker quality. However, the mechanism for rotating and positioning the webcam in different directions is odd and a bit clunky. The biggest kicker and the reason its gotten two stars from me is a pretty noticeable bit of dust or plastic inside the lens element, behind the front, transparent panel. Obviously this is a brand new product and must be a first batch problem, but I honestly expected better from Anker. I kept the camera in it's protective film and plugged it in just to see if it was worth looking past this minor defect. I'm happy to say the camera quality is excellent. My dark corner office space did not look like such a dark corner and the camera handled the backlit scene (a window behind me) very well. Unfortunately, it was not enough to look past the defect, I have tried to capture it on camera. I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but considering the price and the quality I expected from Anker, I am not prepared to just 'bear with' the defect. The problem is now exacerbated by the fact that I got a £30 discount by signing up to updates from Anker about the announcement and since I bought it from Amazon, I am not able to simply exchange the item for a new one and would rather have to order a brand new one and return this one, which I would be fine doing if the discount code wasn't invalidated by its first use... So just a return it is. I guess I'll hope for Anker to get their manufacturing processes right for this product and hope the price drops in the meantime. Edit: After leaving this review, I ordered a replacement direct from Anker as I was still able to use my discount code there. The next day Anker Customer Support contacted me directly to offer me a replacement for my original Amazon order, free of charge. I actually ended up with two webcams, one free and the replacement I bought, which both arrived the same day. I opened up the replacement Anker sent me and noticed a very small bit of dust once again (although not as bad as the first one I got from Amazon, so then I opened the second one I actually bought myself from Anker and this too had a small bit of dust in a lens element. I don’t know if I got *incredibly* unlucky (now having received 3 separate webcams with dust in the lens), but I was still in contact with Anker Customer Support who were very friendly and helpful and were able to issue a refund for the one I bought on their website. I have updated this from 2 stars to 4, but this is mainly for the fact that I managed to receive two free, minorly defective, webcams and Anker’s support was very friendly and helpful. There is no significant reduction in the quality of the webcam image due to the dust, but the camera does perform marginally worse than some other webcams I have seen from Logitech or Razer etc. This has been an incredibly long review already but all of the problems I had with the product aside, if you do manage to get a perfect webcam first time, I honestly still think this is slightly overpriced for the image quality you receive, although the AI aspect of the webcam may yet improve the quality over time? All I can say for certain is Anker is a fantastic company that do care about their customers, I think it’s unfortunate that I received a few slightly defective products, but this is a good first attempt at the product and I imagine could be a very successful product line with some future iterations/revisions.

I spent a great deal of effort trying to find the right camera for my taste and went through quite a few different ones. My requirements were: Good lighting Good picture quality Ability to tweak settings in a dedicated App I bought this after increasing my budget and honestly I was expecting it to be a similar poor experience as others in the past. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was a much better experience. The feature set described, is pretty accurate and most importantly the App to tweak settings works really well, giving me the ability to adjust the viewing angle, colour and picture quality. I honestly can't find fault with it. All in all I would highly recommend this Camera, it is a close competitor to the Razer Kiyo Pro.