It's not often that a seven-year-old peripheral is still the leader in its field, but that's the story of the Logitech C920, the best all-around consumer webcam for themoney. First released in 2012, this 1080p, USB camera captures crystal-clear images with bright colors and wide angles and even offers great audio capture through its dual microphones. Now, for Prime Day, Amazon has the Logitech C920 on sale for $39.99, the lowest price it has ever been.
I can vouch for the C920, because I've been using it as my home webcam since I bought one in 2015. At work, I use the $88, business-oriented C930e, which is nearly identical but has a slightly wider field of view and a privacy shutter.
Logitech makes a few other, pricier cameras that are basically the C920 with a couple of extra features. The $64 C920s is the same camera with a privacy shutter while the $74 C922x adds green-screening technology that replaces the background behind you. But, for most people, those aren't must-have features.
Logitech's camera design offers the kind of image quality you won't find on other external webcams and it blows away even the best built-in laptop webcams. Because it uses USB, you can use the camera in a variety of applications. It's compatible with a Raspberry Pi so you can use one to create a home security system or do facial recognition.
The C920 is so accurate that many businesses and government agencies use them for taking official photos; I always see this camera at passport control when I'm entering another country coming back home to the U.S.
At $39, the Logitech C920 is $10 less than it normally sells for and the lowest Amazon has ever sold it for. If you don't own an external webcam, this offers a quantum improvement over whatever is built into your laptop. If you already own a C920, this might be a good time to buy another to use with a second computer or to carry in your bag for trips.
Avram Piltch is Managing Editor: Special Projects. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC, or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
