I dismissed the Poly P5 Webcam, but you absolutely shouldn’t

Some time ago, either Plantronics (or Poly as they re-branded to) or HP (who now owns Poly) sent us the Poly P5 Webcam to check out. As these things go sometimes, it got shuffled to the side and forgotten about. As those in our Chrome Unboxed Plus community know, we’ve recently rearranged our offices and in the process of cleaning and reorganizing, I came across this device once again. And I’m ashamed to say I missed the greatness of this webcam the first time around.

In the simplest terms, the Poly P5 is a USB webcam that has a cool privacy shutter and a bit of a unique look to it. The attachment on the top is nothing wild and the way you set it up and use it is familiar to anyone who’s ever used an external webcam before. In that way, I’m not surprised we forgot about it a bit.

But recently, I’ve been in more calls than normal, and at my desk with my larger monitor up above my eyeline, I’ve found my Chromebook’s built-in webcam to be at an odd angle in these calls as I keep my device directly below my extended display. So I’ve been using a cheap, external webcam mounted on the top of my screen for calls in the office, and it’s been pretty mediocre.

But after we found the Poly P5 and I plugged it in to see what it looked like, I was blown away with the quality. From colors to sharpness to overall picture quality, I’m happier now on video calls than I’ve ever been. And with all the Chromebook Plus camera features working seamlessly with it, I’m reaching for the Poly P5 for every single video call I take from here on out.

While I don’t know that the microphone is better than what you get in most Chromebooks these days (you’d have to test and see which you like better), the image quality is night and day versus any built-in webcam I’ve used. Are there likely even better options out there? Of course, but probably not at this sort of price.

HP has the Poly P5 available for just $55, and if you are someone who is on video calls a lot, I can’t recommend this little camera enough. The spinning privacy shutter is a cool addition, the setup mechanism is a snap, and it works right out of the box with your Chromebook. I hate that this thing has been sitting on the shelf for a while and that I’ve neglected it, but now that I know what’s up with it, I won’t be going back anytime soon. If you are looking for a better look with your webcam, look no further.