Creative Live! Cam Sync 4K Review

If you want to look better on video calls than your laptop’s camera can manage, you need a dedicated webcam. Creative’s lineup tops out at the Live! Cam Sync 4K ($59.99), which offers a 4K recording resolution and good sound from its mics. Its video quality doesn’t match that of more premium alternatives and the app experience could use more features, but those are reasonable compromises given its modest price. The Live! Cam Sync 4K is easy to recommend if you're looking to spend well under $100, though if you're willing to stretch your budget, the Dell Pro Webcam delivers considerably better picture and audio quality for $134.99.

The slim, black, bar-like Live! Cam Sync 4K tapers toward the back and comes in at 1.4 by 4.2 by 1.3 inches (HWD). The lens protrudes from the front a bit, while a somewhat fiddly flip-up rubber cap below it serves as a privacy cover. This cap seems a little cheap compared with the magnetic one for the Dell Pro Webcam or the twistable iris cover of the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra, but, to be fair, both of those cameras are several times more expensive and the cap does its job just fine.

An LED on the upper left corner of the camera’s face indicates if the mic is on, but not the camera. This is a little unnerving if you’re used to webcams that light up only when they are capturing video. That said, two light bars on either side of the lens do start glowing when the camera is rolling. The mic LED turns off when you switch the mechanical mic mute switch on the top of the camera to the off position. An additional button next to that switch toggles the backlight compensation feature, which tweaks the exposure.

The Live! Cam Sync 4K's permanently attached monitor clip uses a ball joint with limited potential for tilt and pivot adjustments. The clip comprises a standard pair of black plastic tabs that connect via a stiff hinge. The bottom tab has a rubber coating for grip, while the upper tab has a lip on the front to keep the camera steady when you attach it to the top of a monitor or laptop screen. In the closed position, the clip makes a standard quarter-inch screw mount available for tripods.

It uses an 8MP, Type 1/2.8 Sony Starvis sensor and an f/2.2 lens with a 95-degree field of view. That lens captures a broader angle than you get with the Dell Pro Webcam (78 degrees), the Poly Studio P5 (80 degrees), and the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra (82 degrees), so it should handle small conference rooms fairly well.

You manually focus the lens by twisting the ring on the front of the camera, which is not as convenient as relying on the autofocus system of the Dell Pro Webcam or any of the Razer Kiyo webcams. But this is an improvement over Creative's cheaper, fixed-focus models (and most other sub-$100 webcams) because at least you get some potential for adjustment.

You can change settings for the Live! Cam Sync 4K via the Creative App, which is available only for Windows. But this has to be one of the most underwhelming companion apps I’ve tested for a webcam, so macOS users aren't missing much.

The software provides the typical sliders for brightness, contrast, white balance (with an auto toggle), exposure (with an auto toggle), hue, and backlight compensation, along with 50Hz and 60Hz refresh rate options to control for any flicker. As for audio, you can choose between 16-bit/44.1kHz and 16-bit/48kHz recording quality, as well as adjust the mic's overall volume level. That's already a minimal set of adjustments, but the complete lack of a preview window remains downright baffling. If you want to check how your adjustments look, you need to launch a separate program that can show video from the webcam, such as a video conferencing app.

The app doesn’t offer any extra image processing or framing tricks, such as auto-tracking or digital pan-and-zoom to keep your face in the center of the frame. These features are usually available only on more expensive cameras, but if your video chat or recording software offers these capabilities, the Live! Cam Sync 4K should technically support them because of its pixel-dense resolution.

The camera’s microphones work very well for the price. Test recordings sounded clear and didn’t pick up the noises of my air conditioner in the background, though my voice did sound a bit distant or tinny at times. Regardless, these mics are a clear improvement over my laptop’s built-in array. If you want to seriously boost the quality of your audio for video calls or streaming, a dedicated USB microphone or a good gaming headset remain superior choices.

The camera’s 4K resolution doesn’t necessarily translate into excellent video quality. Even if it can capture 3,840-by-2,160-pixel video (and it can), the webcam's lens, internal components, and sensor size all limit the quality. Creative likely had to make a few concessions to meet this model's affordable price, and indeed, its video quality isn't as clean as the 2K Dell Pro Webcam’s, which has a slightly brighter f/2.0 lens. The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra comes out ahead of both thanks to its massive Type 1/1.2 sensor and 4K resolution. The Creative camera still offers an improvement over most laptops' webcams and the Creative Live! Cam Sync 1080p V2 though, with performance roughly on par with the Poly Studio P5.

Predictably, the Live! Cam Sync 4K’s low-light performance is underwhelming. Images look a bit noisy even in good lighting, but the noise gets worse as the amount of available light decreases. With the illumination of just a monitor, for example, the picture loses a great level of detail. A fill light (I used the Logitech Litra Glow in testing) made a few details more clear, but the heavy noise is still present, especially in the muddy background.

The Creative Live! Cam Sync 4K is a capable webcam that can bump up the image and audio quality of your video calls for not much money. Its 4K resolution doesn’t mean much, however, because its picture isn’t as sharp or clear as the lower-resolution Dell Pro Webcam, our Editors' Choice award winner. Still, this Creative model is a good value-minded alternative that performs better than its cheaper Live! Cam Sync 1080p V2 sibling.

Although its video quality doesn't hold up against pricier competitors, the affordable Creative Live! Cam Sync 4K webcam captures video in high resolution and records clear audio.

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