Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra review: The best webcam sensor, but at what cost?

The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra is a webcam with a huge sensor that delivers the best quality on a webcam. But is that enough to justify its price tag?

Razer introduced the Kiyo Pro Ultra back at CES touting the largest sensor ever in a webcam, which immediately got my interest. There's definitely a need for better webcams in this day and age. Laptops have been getting better, but they're not quite there yet, especially with some brands like Dell XPS still using 720p sensors.

The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra goes above and beyond to provide stellar image quality, with a huge 1/1.2-inch sensor and a wide f/1.7 aperture on top of supporting uncompressed 4K video. There's nothing quite like it in terms of clarity, and even low-light scenarios are handled very well.

A significant problem I've run into with this webcam, however, is that the auto-focus can be a bit finicky. It also lacks face-tracking zoom, something we've seen in laptop webcams like the ones from HP. That reduces the versatility of this webcam, which is a bummer for something so expensive.

About this review: XDA bought the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra for this review. Razer had no input in its contents.

The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra has the largest sensor of any webcam on the market, producing excellent image and video quality. It even performs well in low-light scenarios, though autofocus issues keep it from perfection.

As we've mentioned, the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra was announced earlier this year at CES, and it launched immediately through the company's website. That's still pretty much the only place you can buy it brand-new.

The price is set at $300, or €350 for those of us in Europe. That makes it the most expensive webcam I've used, and probably the most expensive consumer webcam in general. It's closely matched with the Insta360 Link I reviewed last year, but if you go above that, you'll mostly be looking at conferencing room hardware.

Let's not beat around the bush here: The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra is kind of enormous for a webcam. I don't have experience with previous Kiyo webcams, but this thing is gigantic, and it makes the Insta360 Link look positively tiny by comparison. The camera even includes a lens cap, and that cap perfectly fits the actual camera lens that I use to take pictures for my reviews.

That's pretty crazy considering there's nothing mechanical like a gimbal inside the webcam. All of that space only accommodates the huge sensor and the built-in processor that enables uncompressed 4K video. It must require some beefy cooling too, seeing as there are a few vents around the back. That makes a lot of sense for such a high-quality camera, but if you want to mount this on a laptop, it needs to have a stiff hinge, and you'll be a bit limited in how far back the display can open before it's forced to open all the way.

Aside from the size, not much needs to be said about the webcam. It does include a privacy shutter that's pretty easy to open and close by rotating the ring around the front of the webcam. It also includes a screw-on stand/clamp for a monitor using standard quarter-inch screw mounts. The stand itself also has a screw hole, so you can mount the webcam on a tripod or something without removing the stand.

I will say that I also appreciate how consistent Razer is with using sleeved cables for its peripherals. It feels much more premium.

In exchange for this huge size, the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra does give you excellent image quality, potentially the best in any webcam. It supports uncompressed 4K video at 24FPS, based on 4K 30FPS raw capture, thanks to the processor inside the camera itself. My main point of reference in terms of quality is the Insta360 Link here I reviewed last year, which is similarly expensive and was arguably the best webcam prior to this.

Image quality on the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra is absolutely fantastic, easily outclassing the Insta360 Link. It has a much larger sensor, so it makes perfect sense. Not only does the Kiyo Pro Ultra look extremely sharp in bright daylight, but it retains those qualities as you switch to indoor lighting and even when you're just relying on light from your monitor. Obviously, quality does deteriorate in low-light settings, but it's impressive just how much it manages to retain.

Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra (left); Insta360 Link (right):

If you can compare that to the Insta360 Link, it's clear that Razer's camera comes out on top. My face looks much clearer and sharper, and the background has a soft blur effect without any AI processing. That advantage is even clearer when the lighting conditions get worse, though some colors like the green on my t-shirt actually look somewhat more realistic with the Insta360 Link.

Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra (left); Insta360 Link (right):

Those advantages also hold up in video recordings at 4K, with the Kiyo Pro Ultra also doing a good job of adapting to low-light scenarios.

The big problem with video on the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra is autofocus. It does support it, and it even has a special face-tracking mode enabled by default that seeks to keep your face in focus, even if you're not perfectly centered in the frame. It does work, but it always takes just a little too long to focus on you again when you move out of the current plane of focus. It happens a lot during calls as I lean forward and back, or if I move around in my chair for a bit, and it can be pretty jarring for someone watching you to see the image frequently go in and out of focus.

I believe this is something Razer can address with a firmware update, so hopefully that does improve. As it stands, though, I do prefer using the Insta360 Link because it's less jarring when it comes to autofocus.

The Kiyo Pro Ultra also has built-in microphones, like most webcams, and they're fine. Like most, you likely won't be using them if you want to sound especially clear, but it gets the job done in a pinch. You're probably buying this webcam for streaming, and if you are, you probably have a headset that's way better anyway.

Like most of Razer's PC products, the Kiyo Pro Ultra comes with a slew of software adjustments that can be made using the Razer Synapse app. A lot of people don't like Razer Synapse, but I find it to be fairly straightforward compared to peripheral software from other companies.

There are plenty of controls available for the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra through Synapse, and they're split into three tabs: Camera, Processing, and Image. The Camera tab lets you change more hardware-related settings. You can set a zoom level and tilt the camera view, so you're viewing a specific part of the frame, adjust the focus settings, and change the exposure, including if exposure should be metered to the average lighting of the frame, the center of the frame, or your face.

One big thing that stands out here, though, is that there's no face-tracking zoom. Many laptop cameras now have face-tracking zoom, which takes the image for the full sensor and crops into the frame to keep your face centered. You can adjust the framing manually once you zoom, but there's no face tracking for this.

The Processing tab has more to do with encoding quality, but also post-processing features like HDR, lens distortion compensation, low light compensation, and noise reduction. It's kind of crazy to have a webcam that needs lens distortion compensation, but that's just how big this sensor is. You do get a fish-eye effect if you disable this, and it's enabled by default. However, you need to disable it to use 4K resolution and zooming capabilities at the same time.

Finally, the Image tab changes more basic settings for the final image, like brightness, contrast, saturation, and white balance.

I do wish Windows Hello support was available with such a big sensor, but this hardware is plenty expensive as it is.

You should buy the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra if:

You should NOT buy the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra if:

Image quality-wise, I'd say there's no question that the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra is the best webcam on the market. Images look incredibly sharp and clear, and it handles low-light scenarios like a champ. However, the autofocus issues make it a little harder to justify that incredibly high $300 price tag. If you're mostly stationary on a webcam, it's probably not a big deal, and the image quality you get in return is absolutely fantastic.

If you asked me to choose a webcam for $300, my money would still be on the Insta360 Link. I see more value in the face tracking and the flexibility of that webcam, and while the differences in image quality are obvious, they're not so big enough to compensate. I also find it a little less frustrating to use because of the autofocus issue that the Kiyo Pro Ultra has. With that being said, this is a fantastic webcam all the same, and it's unlikely you'll be disappointed in its quality.

The Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra has the largest sensor of any webcam on the market, producing excellent image and video quality. It even performs well in low-light, though autofocus issues keep it from perfection.

I've been covering the tech world since 2018, and I love computers, phones, and - above all that - Nintendo videogames, which I'm always happy to talk about.