Razer’s New Webcam Is Totally Overkill, but We Love It
Along with its impressive beamforming speaker, Razer debuted a new 4K webcam at CES 2023. And man, this thing is total overkill—the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra shoots uncompressed 4K 24FPS video, it has the largest sensor of any webcam, and it uses AI to achieve several image-enhancing effects.
From a technical standpoint, the Kiyo Pro Ultra should offer a higher-quality image than competing 4K webcams. The Elgato Facecam Pro shoots 4K 60FPS video, for example, but it’s compressed video, meaning that some of the clarity, detail, and vibrance is sacrificed to reduce file size or processing requirements.
We tested the Kiyo Pro Ultra in person at CES. And we were very impressed. The video feed is clear, sharp, and vibrant. Setting the webcam to 1080p 60FPS allows you to capture video with HDR, and there are settings for face tracking and a bokeh effect (both of which look quite nice).
Clearly, Razer is aiming for content creators. This is the kind of webcam you buy instead of a DSLR (which is probably why the Kiyo Pro Ultra looks like a big fat camera lens). It even has a built-in omnidirectional microphone, and the lens can twist closed for privacy.
But is this a meaningful upgrade over the Razer Kiyo Pro? Well, it depends on how you plan to use your webcam. I wouldn’t necessarily buy something like this for video calls or livestreams, for example, because platforms like Zoom and Twitch don’t support 4K video.
That said, the bokeh and face tracking features can still come in handy in video meetings or livestreams. And because this camera has such a large sensor, it may look better than the competition even at a 1080p resolution. This is something we’ll have to test in a future review.
The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra is available elusively at the Razer website. It costs a whopping $300, exactly $100 more than the Razer Kiyo Pro.
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