Posts in category: Laptops

Webcams are bad or are They? Actually they suck!

So Our assumption here was that laptop makers figured webcam, that’s an easy place to cut costs, but as it turns out that is only a small piece of the puzzle.

we got to come to this, although we’ve been one of the most vocal reviewers trying to get decent webcams into laptops, we expect that you’re just going to use your phone quality becomes much better in phones. The webcam falls considerably short of the surface laptop.

But first, to understand what makes a camera bad, we have to talk about what makes one good, starting with the sensor, this Sony FS6 features an enormous 35-millimetre wide full-frame sensor. And when it comes to cameras, size matters.

All other things being equal, the bigger the sensor, the lighter, it can collect on each pixel improving colour fidelity, and greatly improving performance in low light conditions. So problem number one is that due to space constraints webcams views, smooth purse small sensors, typically in the range of about two to five millimetres wide. As pressure from consumers, and reviewers mounted for the bezels on laptops to shrink. So did the webcams shrink.

we mean we were stoked when Dell announced refreshed XPS models with top-mounted webcams that didn’t look up the user’s nose, and we do still think that was a worthwhile trade-off but the results are not incredible, but this shrinking the bezel really make that much of a difference. Yes, actually, let me tell you. In the dragonfly max, HP actually increased the bezel size compared to the last model to accommodate a 3.63 millimetres

Now, that’s still only 2% of the size of the FS6 we just showed you, but it’s also a whopping five times the size of the 2.2-millimetre sensor in the skinny bezel. Dell’s this bigger sensor also allows more pixels to be packed in for 1440p recording, which delivers a noticeable improvement in sharpness, compared to your typical 720p webcam.

Another problem for laptop webcams is Windows Hello facial recognition. It is the best way to Sign-in in to Windows, hands down, but because lighting conditions might be dramatically different from one sign in to the next. It relies on built-in emitters that will illuminate your face using infrared light. Now, digital cameras are inherently sensitive to infrared, but most of them actually block it out on purpose because it causes issues with both autofocus and colour saturation. That’s why, earlier implementations of Windows Hello used a separate camera, dedicated to capturing IR. But then, in that same mad rush to shrink bezels. These have been combined n some models, and in spite of the software tuning that goes into these combined sensors, you can still get purple splotchiness and weird noise on the dragonfly max then HP decided combined sensors were a pain in the butt, they didn’t want to deal with. So they included a separate IR and video camera to get to the cleanest feed possible.

Well of course you can have the biggest and badest sensor in the world and if the glass in front of it is bad. Your picture quality is going to be bad. One of the roles that the lens plays than is to ensure that that tiny sensor gets as much light hitting it as possible. Now the aperture of a camera or, more accurately, a lens describes how big of an opening you have. So the bigger the opening, the more light you can get and since we already have problems with low light on such small sensors. Well then, we should make the aperture on the lens for your webcam as wide open as possible. Right? Well, yes, but also know the size of your aperture not only changes how much light is led in but also the depth of field So if we were to really open up the lens on the laptop, it would need to have exceptional autofocus to make sure that you don’t belong, blurry. Every time you shift around in your seat. Now, there are many ways to do autofocus, probably the best way is demonstrated in Sony’s Alpha lineup.

It uses parts of the sensor to detect the face of the incoming light and uses that to focus. Modern phones use similar tech, probably at least partly because Sony also supplies the sensors for Apple and Samsung with these super small microelectromechanical systems or memes that can super accurately focus the lenses.

As for how laptop webcams focus. Well, they don’t. There simply isn’t enough space. Like, think about the thickness of your phone. The laptop didn’t have that, then the cabling from the webcam, microphone, and Wi-Fi encounters that are usually back there, and you don’t have the space that you would need for multi-element lenses. So just a single focus point has to be picked. And that’s what you’re stuck with. Of course, you can get away with mediocre video just fine. If your audio quality is good. Now simple laptop microphones have one or sometimes two little holes, usually near the screen to capture your voice while better ones can use more.

So then, the bad news is that there are serious constraints to improving webcam quality in laptops. But the good news is that they can get better and some laptop manufacturers are beginning to take the problem seriously.

credit: Linus Tech Tips