I have had the opportunity to test out Poly’s Studio P5 webcam. It is not battling in the cheapest of camera ranges, but not in the most expensive ones either.
You can also read about Poly Studio P5 from Poly’s website. P5 comes in a simple package.
But what else you would need for a webcam? If you plan to travel a lot, a case would be nice. The cable is a bit short (1.3 meters) to my setup at home, which limited how I was able to position the cam.
What is really cool, is that it comes with a integrated privacy shield. You just twist the outer ring around the lens and it twists on or off. Just make sure you make the movement all the way or it looks like it is open, but in fact the camera doesn’t turn on. Yes, I did that mistake.
On top of camera there is a light that is
- Green when you are in a call and camera is active
- White when camera is ready but not in a call
- Red when the privacy shield is on / muted
You should use Poly Lens to set various options to the cam and also to keep it up to date.
My experiences and conclusion
Poly Studio P5 has a tough spot on my setup. I have a Logitech BRIO camera that is a) more expensive b) and has better specs. I found out that I really needed to switch to use Poly Studio P5 just to test it out. I kept coming back to BRIO very often because it provides a lot clearer result and it also has a lot better tolerance for varying lighting conditions – and especially on low-light. I think the biggest flaw in P5 was how it didn’t perform in low-light / varying lighting conditions.
Build quality on the cam is good. It is a bit technical in outlook and thus made for office/work use more than design. The monitor clip is versatile and it works. The built-in privacy shield is the best I have seen so far – and it also protects the lens. The build makes this one easy to take along – a good quality in current hybrid world.
Microphone was ok to my standards on Studio P5. However since Logitech BRIO has a such a great stereo mic built-in it was clear which one of these two was the better one. It is good to keep in mind that Logitech BRIO costs more what Poly Studio P5 does, which makes it a really premium cam.
I think Poly Studio P5 is a ok webcam and makes a great cam when comparing other ones in it’s price-range. However it remains to be seen when Microsoft’s new webcams are getting evaluated against it. Surface-series has really good cams so it will be interesting to see how they compare against Logitech and Poly.
I got this device from Poly for testing
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