The Elgato Facecam is an exceptionally capable webcam, as it should be for its hefty $200 price tag. Elgato combined the Sony STARVIS BSI CMOS sensor with an 8-element all-glass fixed focus lens and managed to produce a webcam with excellent image quality in various lighting conditions. There's absolutely no point in comparing the Facecam to cheap mainstream webcams as they don't have anything in common other than colloquially falling into the same product category. In direct comparison to the heavy hitters, such as the $200 Logitech Brio, the Elgato Facecam comes out on top with incredible ease because of its superior image quality.

The Facecam is backed by the excellent Camera Hub, by far the most feature-packed webcam configuration software I've ever tested. It allows you to configure the usual parameters, such as FOV, contrast, saturation, and white balance, but also play around with ISO and shutter speed, which is a first for any webcam as far as I'm aware. Thanks to that, you can really fine-tune the video output to your personal preference. For example, if you don't like the fact that the automatic exposure algorithm leans toward making the image as bright as possible and would prefer a slightly darker, more dramatic look, you'll be able to achieve exactly that.

The Elgato Facecam is also equipped with onboard flash memory, which can be used to save your preferred camera settings by overriding the default ones, so the camera will use those even after you restart your PC or connect the camera to a different computer altogether. Only one configuration profile can be saved this way, but Elgato will add the option to save multiple software profiles and switch between them within the Camera Hub app in a future update. Some other useful features have been announced as well; for example, it will be possible to select the part of the frame we want to zoom in on, which currently isn't an option. With these additions, the only thing missing will be the green-magenta tint slider for the manual white balance setting. There are no plans to add it as far as I'm aware, which is a shame because we could then easily get rid of that slight greenish tint that becomes apparent as soon as automatic white balance is deactivated.

This being a content creator-focused webcam, Elgato didn't bother equipping it with a microphone, which it justifies with the obvious "no content creator will want to use a webcam microphone" mantra. For reasons explained on the previous page, I think this is a bad decision. I would hence love to have a basic microphone added to the Facecam.

While this is the most expensive webcam on the market, it's also the best in terms of overall image quality. It's limited to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, but that's understandable as 4K is completely unnecessary for live streaming and would only add to the complexity (and price) of the device. Is it a good choice for someone who's looking to up their live streaming game, but isn't ready to upgrade to a digital camera/capture card combo? I think so. Even though a digital camera will unquestionably give you better image quality and much more versatility (optical zoom, exchangeable lenses, ability to shoot anywhere and make videos unrelated to live streaming, etc.), it is also significantly more expensive and more challenging to use. The plug-and-play nature of a webcam is impossible to beat in this regard.

If you decide to spend your money on the Elgato Facecam, a basic lighting setup, and a good USB microphone, such as the Elgato's own Wave:1 (reviewed here) or the Movo UM700 (reviewed here), you'll end up with a really nice live streaming setup that will serve you well as your channel grows—you'd also end up spending only a fraction of what you'd have to pay for a decent digital camera alone. With that in mind, the Elgato Facecam seems like a great, long-lasting steppingstone on your way to online stardom.