HyperX Vision S

HP-owned HyperX stepped into the video side of the content creation field this year with the Vision S webcam. It’s an ambitious camera that swings for the high-end fences with a $199.99 price and a 4K Sony Starvis sensor. Only one other webcam we’ve tested, the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra ($299.99), touts the use of a Starvis sensor—and delivers on the hype with incredible low-light performance and bokeh similar to a professional camera thanks to its wide lens. The Vision S is sharp and works great even in the dark, but not quite as well as the Kiyo Pro Ultra since it has a smaller sensor and doesn’t generate bokeh. Still, it's an excellent alternative for $100 less, as long as you don’t mind using a separate microphone.

A Little Black Box

The Vision S is a black, tube-shaped aluminum box measuring 1.8 by 1.8 by 3.7 inches (HWD). The front features a glossy black face with the camera lens in the center and a white status LED above it. A magnetic lens cap snaps onto the front or back of the camera, just like the Dell UltraSharp Webcam. A USB-C port sits on the bottom, near the back edge for connecting to your computer through the included six-foot USB-C-to-USB-A cable.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

A rectangular monitor clip with two flat jaws is permanently attached to the camera. The webcam can pivot 180 degrees horizontally, and you can adjust the vertical tilt by changing the jaw's angle against the back of your monitor or by adjusting a hinge above the top jaw that can tilt forward about 30 degrees. When folded, the monitor clip has a tripod screw mount.

The Vision S doesn’t have a built-in microphone, so you’ll have to use your computer's mic, a headset, or a USB mic to be heard with it. This is a trend we’ve seen with some high-end webcams like the Elgato Facecam Pro, but after testing some similarly priced cameras with surprisingly good microphones, like the Dell Pro Webcam ($134.99) and the Kiyo Pro Ultra, it's disappointing that the Vision S omits one.

Simple, But Slightly Buggy Software

The HyperX Ngenuity software lets you adjust the webcam’s settings with three separate framing modes (full frame, head-and-shoulders, and face), two of which digitally pan and zoom to keep you in the center of the shot. You can also switch off the auto-exposure, auto-focus, and auto-white balance modes and manually dial in those settings; toggle features like high dynamic range (HDR) recording, low-light compensation, and backlight compensation; and make some limited brightness, sharpness, and saturation adjustments.

(Credit: HyperX)

I found the app to be a bit buggy on my computer, freezing the preview when I switched framing modes and making it slow to respond when I switched to capture software. I recommend keeping the camera on default settings in most cases, and only using the app to set framing (and then closing it).

Clear and Bright, Even in Low Light

While both the Vision S and Kiyo Pro Ultra both use an 8-megapixel Sony Starvis sensor, their sensors of choice are very different. The HyperX Vision S uses a 1/2.8-inch Starvis IMX415 sensor, significantly smaller than the Kiyo Pro Ultra’s (unspecified model, but likely IMX585) 1/1.2-inch sensor. Sensor size is very important, because sensors with more space per pixel can capture more light without noise, drastically improving low-light performance. Regardless of sensor size, both cameras can capture 4K30 and 1080p60 video.

The Vision S has a fairly wide 90-degree field of view compared with the Kiyo Pro Ultra’s 72 to 82 degrees, but its aperture isn’t specified while the Kiyo Pro Ultra has a very wide f/1.7. In testing I found the Vision S much easier to work with, because its lens has a much deeper focal plane. You won’t get the professional bokeh effect of a crisp face in front of a blurred background like Razer's model offers, but you can be confident that your face, the background, and anything you hold up in your hands will be in focus and the camera won’t struggle to figure out what needs to look sharp at the expense of everything else. It also means that the Vision S can’t pick up as much light as the Kiyo Pro Ultra.

Video quality is excellent, especially in good light. Test captures in my apartment with the lights on full brightness look sharp and saturated, taking full advantage of the camera’s 4K resolution. The camera’s focus plane is much more generous than the Kiyo Pro Ultra's, so details on everything from my face to my kitchen counter behind me are clear, with the kitchen appliances and hallway farther back only a bit blurry. It isn’t as artistic with powerful bokeh behind the focus object like the Kiyo, but it’s much more flexible if you want to keep almost everything in the frame visible.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Low-light performance is very strong, but the smaller image sensor becomes much more apparent here compared with the Kiyo Pro Ultra. Illuminated only by my monitor, my face looks fairly clear in test captures. Noise is noticeable, though, and the darker background is particularly noisy. Fortunately, the noise is fairly consistent, and while it does soften details, it isn’t a blotchy, overcompensated mess as we see with cheaper webcams. The performance here is similar to the standard Kiyo Pro.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

A Super-Sharp 4K Webcam

The HyperX Vision S has the second-best picture of any webcam we’ve tested, next to the Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra. It’s incredibly sharp in strong lighting, and works well in low light with whatever ambient illumination it can pick up. It’s expensive, especially since it lacks a microphone, but its performance justifies the price. The Kiyo Pro Ultra is still our top pick for the sharpest and most professional-looking images, though it costs $100 more and its bokeh effect limits how much it can focus on at a given time. If you're looking to spend less, the Dell Pro Webcam is an excellent 2K workhorse that costs just over half the price of the Vision S, with a very good picture and a strong microphone. The Vision S is an appealing alternative that splits the difference between the two in performance and value.