Last month the webcam market took a significant blow and there are two reasons for this.  First of all, more and more screens have integrated webcams.  Second, we are of the strong opinion that most current webcams on the market, with a few exceptions, are more or less the same offering a minimum of functions.  There is often no autofocus to do away with manual adjustment, poor night time rendering, and sound reproduction deforms voices.

It’s true that as we test more and more of these products, the situation looks a bit bleak.  And we can only ask when the webcam market will have more complete models competing to catch our eye instead of the current rather mediocre choices.

With the SPC 620NC Philips proposes a small webcam with a classic design (all plastic, a bit light) with a fixation system that works of course on all screens but isn’t ideal for laptops.  The first apparent downside is the lack of autofocus and for other functions there is face tracking.  However more importantly, how did this model fare for noise and contrast control, night rendering and sound reproduction?

Image quality

Rendering is more or less satisfactory but gradation in black colors was poor.  Overall, colors tend to lean towards blue green (see the wall behind our subject), while in normal conditions with artificial lighting or daylight images are pleasant.  There is good detail with a slight loss in darker colors.

At night, it’s another story.  The image is very dark and we barely recognize our conversation partner.  Yes, we have seen worse but more importantly we’ve also seen better. Webcam manufacturers need to take into account that these products are also used at night.

Autofocus and face tracking

Focusing is done manually and this is true for the entire line of Philips webcams.  We can only wonder why autofocus has not yet been included.  Face tracking, the function which follows the user’s small movements, works well.

A little bonus

Phillips gives you the possibility of changing the background as well as several video effects.

Sometimes you sound like a cartoon character

While the voice of your conversation partner is recognizable, there are some words that come out strange.  You sometimes get the impression you are conversing with Sylvester the cat and it’s slightly annoying.