Review: Poly P5 Webcam – Seeing is Believing

With Déjà vu sweeping across Australia, thanks to COVID-19, working from home (WFH) also returns and so too does the prolific use of platforms such as Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet.

Thankfully whilst we’ve been treading water for 14 months, consumer technology companies such as Poly have been busy bringing awesome new products to market such as the Studio P5 Webcam.

Like many third-party webcams, the Poly Studio P5 is engineered to easily mount to the top of a screen or monitor for precise framing. Unlike most webcams, however, the P5 is finished in a bespeckled recycled plastic housing that contains a 1080p HD camera with 4x zoom and a directional microphone weighing less than 100g.

The HD camera includes an 80º Field of View and f2.0 auto-focus lens that manages low light environments extremely well. Sadly, like many webcams, the challenge of bright background light is not a strength of the P5 – but that’s an issue that is easily managed by the user.

In addition to the excellent lens and the responsive microphone, the Poly Studio P5 Webcam includes an integrated privacy shutter that triggers a top-mounted LED to indicate the current privacy setting. This feature has been included with considerable thought given to the UI. A simple rotation of the outer camera housing switched between modes.

At the rear of the oddly aerodynamically designed webcam, there is a 1.3m USB-A cable and an additional USB-A port that allows the easy connection of a wireless headset adapter.

For those looking for something more secure and manageable in an enterprise environment, the P5 is compatible with the Poly Lens software management that gives IT teams control over voice and video devices. The Poly Lens App unifies all your Poly compatible devices ensuring that firmware and other health and wellness attributes are centrally managed for all your users. There’s even a tripod mounting nut for more permanent installations.

Super quick and easy to get out of the box and working with your PC or Mac, the Poly Studio P5 Webcam retails for around $175 and will take your video conferencing game up a number of levels!