1080p webcams: Smarten up your video calls with these external cameras

Everyone loves a bargain and, at £20, this 1080p webcam has a £10 head start on every other unit here. We chose it for this test due to its high Amazon rating, even after doing our usual check for promotional reviews, and in many ways it lives up to expectations.

Its colour accuracy is the best we’ve seen in a sub-£50 webcam and it produces detailed images too. Its biggest issue stems from the autofocus, which works in the same way as a camera when adjusting for a shot – a slight zoom in and out as it seeks the right focal point. It’s a tad irritating, but if you keep relatively still and nothing is shifting around in the background then it’s bearable. Its other more minor fault is that it struggles with solid colours such as walls, with the same pixel crawl that you see in cheaper LCD TVs.

With an 80° field of view, the Jelly Comb strikes a good balance between capturing your environment and keeping you centre stage. There shouldn’t be any need to adjust your position during calls to make yourself look larger. Nor will you need a dedicated mic, with two built-in units doing a fine job – but don’t expect stereo separation, as one literally sits above the other.

Sensibly, Jelly Comb builds in a privacy cover. It’s cheap and plasticky, sliding along with all the elegance of Ann Widdecombe mid-cha-cha, but it works. Plus there’s an obvious blue LED during recordings.

We would still pick the Aukey PC-W3 above the Jelly Comb, but if you would prefer to show yourself in a more saturated light this £20 webcam is undeniably great value for money.

Jelly Comb W10 1080p HD Webcam Pro specifications

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Resolution1080p
Framerate30fps
Field of view80°
MicrophoneDual microphones
Cable1.7m
Dimensions (WDH)88 x 25 x 30mm
Warranty1yr limited warranty
Adam Shepherd

Adam Shepherd has been a technology journalist since 2015, covering everything from cloud storage and security, to smartphones and servers. Over the course of his career, he’s seen the spread of 5G, the growing ubiquity of wireless devices, and the start of the connected revolution. He’s also been to more trade shows and technology conferences than he cares to count.

Adam is an avid follower of the latest hardware innovations, and he is never happier than when tinkering with complex network configurations, or exploring a new Linux distro. He was also previously a co-host on the ITPro Podcast, where he was often found ranting about his love of strange gadgets, his disdain for Windows Mobile, and everything in between.

You can find Adam tweeting about enterprise technology (or more often bad jokes) @AdamShepherUK.