eMeet continues to push the envelope with aggressively priced videoconferencing solutions, and the eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual is another example of a quality, autofocusing webcam that includes a handy remote control that quickly offers focus, zoom, and color options.
At press time, the eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual costs just about $70 (or $59.99 at eMeet’s site, at press time), which is terrific for a 4K webcam, even if it doesn’t offer quite the visual quality of some of the premium options in our recommendations for the best webcams. It has a key feature shared by another eMeet camera, the eMeet Piko+ 4K: a pair of lenses that jointly create the image, depending upon what you ask of it. On either side are some programmable RGB accents.
About the only thing I mildly dislike about this webcam is the construction; the camera doesn’t tilt up and down on the mount, which means that framing your face with the camera can be a little awkward. While Windows’ Studio Effects technology will crop and zoom to frame your face, the technology doesn’t always work with external webcams, and depends (right now) on whether you’re running a Windows preview or not. The eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual, meanwhile, has a manual zoom — all the way to a tight 11X.
In any event, the C60E 4K Dual is a quite affordable 4K autofocus webcam, whose images look remarkably like the images generated by the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra camera of a couple years ago. On paper, the two show differences; the SmartCam C60E 4K Dual uses a 1/2.8-inch sensor that’s shared between its two wide-angle and telephoto lenses, while the Kiyo Pro Ultra uses a 1/1.2-inch sensor, which lets in far more light. In a well-lit room, however, that doesn’t make that much difference.
Although eMeet supplies an AI Studio application for fine-grained controls, much of that can be achieved either through the Windows settings or with the accompanying remote, which is surprisingly handy.
The eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual connects to your PC via a 2-meter (6.5 feet) cable, terminating in a USB-A port. The other end of the cord is connected directly to the webcam, so you can’t simply install a longer cable. That should be more than enough on most desktop setups, however.
Again, the weakest part of this webcam is the mount. The eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual uses the traditional “jaws” configuration, where the webcam sits flat on the top of the laptop or display, and a “jaw” juts out at an angle to support it. Some rival webcams add a hinged “tongue” at the end of the jaw to provide a more expansive surface to rest the frame upon.
Virtually all of them, however, have a gimbal or swivel upon which you can adjust the webcam. The eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual only allows you to rotate the camera, not adjust it up or down. It’s not a huge loss, but it’s especially annoying when mounted on the display of a laptop, which can of course be raised or lowered. Each time you open a laptop, you’ll need to readjust the webcam, and it simply takes a bit longer than most.
I’m also not a fan of the fact that eMeet has left the privacy shutter as a stick-on option, rather than just building it in. The RGB highlights do light up when the camera is in use, however.
The webcam allows you to record video of up to 4K (2160p) at 30 frames per second. Alternatively, you can record at 1440p (30fps), 1080p (30fps or 60fps), and various lower resolutions.
Remember, Windows Studio Effects basically uses the full resolution of your webcam to crop and zoom in on your face. The eMeet SmartCam does the same: At a 4K setting, you can only choose from one of two zoom settings as it only has so many pixels to work with. But at 1080p/30fps, you can zoom in all the way to 11X; at some point, you might notice a brief hesitation while it switches cameras. At the lower resolutions you can also use the zoom slider within Windows to either smoothly zoom up to 11X or step through the various gradations (2X, 3X, 4X, etc.) to ratchet the zoom level up and down.
Those gradations are found on the webcam’s remote, which is especially useful. Powered by two AAA batteries, the well-designed remote can be used for everything from toggling between fixed- to auto-focus, to adjusting the zoom controls, to dialing up and down lighting and tint controls. The remote also includes four presets, with everything from a “cool” and “vivid” setting to black and white. Supposedly the remote also controls the ability to scale up and down the resolution, but that didn’t seem to work. Thankfully, it all works out of the box, no drivers necessary.
If you do lose the remote, that’s okay too. Most of its functions (the zoom, lighting, and contrast) can be controlled directly via Windows, as well as the Camera settings within Windows. Still, the remote puts it all at your fingertips, and that’s handy.
eMeet also includes an optional AI Studio app that controls some of the camera’s functions in a nice on-screen UI. Emphasis on optional: Some of the installation software uses Mandarin without English translations, which can be disconcerting. One of the few things AI Studio software exclusively offers is an odd AI app that allows you to create shooting templates for various projects, using everything from ChatGPT to Grok. There’s really very little point to it. (It also provides the ability to swap the RGB lighting between red, green, and blue, too, however.)
Otherwise, the image captures the eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual generated were pretty solid. I felt colors were accurately represented, and that the images were crisp.
I shoot images down in my office, which normally is a bit dimmer; I removed the curtains for cleaning, which allows more light inside. The webcam uses what’s called phase-detection autofocus, or PDAF. All this means is that the autofocus capabilities of this webcam are quick and not “twitchy”: Once the webcam has found your face, which happens quite quickly, the autofocus locks on and remains there.
Upstairs, I happened to capture the images on a grayer day, which dims everything a bit. But I also felt that the images were lifelike, with decent color and contrast. I also threw in one using the black and white preset, just for fun.
Though this webcam does offer some presets, none of them include anything like the “beauty modes” I’ve seen in native webcam apps from Samsung, for example.
The eMeet webcam does have a pair of onboard mics, but this is the other shortcoming that budget webcams tend to offer: average to poor audio, with noise cancellation that barely works. I’m afraid that the eMeet SmartCam C60E 4K Dual falls into this category. I record my voice using the webcam mics as per our normal webcam testing procedure, playing back some rock music and then some white noise via my phone, behind my head and off to the side. In this case, the background audio was clearly audible. You’ll want a quiet room for working with this webcam.
eMeet has produced another inexpensive, quality webcam that fits into a midrange niche. Normally, I’d expect this to be filled by a “2K” (1440p) or other midrange webcam. The fact that eMeet offers 4K capabilities as well as a 1080p, 60Hz option is a lovely bonus.
I wouldn’t download the utility software; it’s not necessary, and additional apps clog your PC. I’d also recommend buying this if you own a desktop display to which you can attach this webcam and not have to move it again. Laptop owners may find it slightly annoying.
Still, I think this webcam deserves four stars, simply because the lack of a mount swivel and lack of a privacy shutter can be dealt with. I’d just encourage eMeet to think hard about not ignoring these basics in the future.
Author: Mark Hachman
Source: PCWorld
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
