MBA M2 Webcam Quality

[Joeleh]

Hi all, looking for some advice/guidance/second opinion.

I've just bought the new MBA M2 13.6 which as you all know comes with a 1080p webcam. I've used the Facetime App and Google Meet to see the quality of the camera and it looks shocking awful, the best way to describe it would be like a digital blurring (as if it's trying to do a zoom-esque touch-up or strange AI filter - but terribly!) I'm just wondering if this is normal or if there are settings I need to change. For context I have an external 1080p webcam that looks worlds better (not that I expect this camera to compare as it doesn't have all the fancy lenses and size to its advantage, despite both being 1080p)

Overall the quality seems great on objects and surrounding area, just seems to be whenever a face/person is in the frame. Apologies for not including screenshots, I don't particularly want to do a face reveal so just seeing if there's anyone out there who has felt the same/dealt with the same or if it's a known issue that I should get checked out.

Thanks!

 

[Isamilis]

All MacBook Air generations have awful camera (quite good for video call but don’t expect more than that). Even the quality is still lower than my old 2014 13” MBP.

 

[porkslow]

I was also shocked by the poor quality of the 2021 M1 MacBook Pro, it's actually worse than my old Intel MacBook Pro due to excessive smoothing in less-than-perfect lighting conditions. The old webcam has more noise for sure but the image is actually sharp. I guess with the new ones they wanted to eliminate the noise at any cost and that's why they have heavy smoothing and other processing which ruins the image.

 

[Joeleh]

YES! Thank you both for responding, totally agree with you and glad it's not a hardware issue with my new mac.

I upgraded from a 2017 MBP and I was so confused seeing the webcam on my new MPA M2 and it feeling a lot worse despite all the claims I had seen on the "new and upgraded webcam." Looks like I am going to have to use my iPhone as webcam instead if I am looking for quality!