Spedal MF920 Webcam Review - Affordable Wide-Angle Webcam
Disclosure: This review was written by Lumina, a company that builds devices for remote work. Our mission is to make remote work better by building forward-thinking collaboration software, webcams, and conferencing devices.
Labeled as Amazon's Choice, the Spedal MF920 Webcam has received an average of 4.4/5 reviews from 500 reviewers on Amazon. The Spedal MF920, priced at $38.99, is even sold at a lower price than the Logitech C525 Webcam.
A few unique features of this webcam are its wide-angle lens and manual focus support. We conducted a few tests to determine whether the Spedal MF920 Webcam is worth the price and whether its unique features set it apart from other webcams. In this comprehensive review, we look at the image and video qualities and compare them to other 1080p webcams in the market.
Ratings ⭐️
Image/Video Quality | 5/10 |
Audio Quality | 6/10 |
Appearance/Design | 7/10 |
Pros
- 💰 Budget-Friendly - costs $38.99 apiece
- 🎛 720° Gimbal Base - 360° horizontal and 180° vertical rotation range
- ↔️ Wide field-of-view (up to 100°)
- 📹 Manual focus support
Cons
- 🔦 Reacts slowly to change in lighting
- 📸 Picture quality is not the best
- 🎨 Poor white balance for dark lighting conditions
Image Quality 📷
Firstly, we took several pictures under four lighting conditions using the Spedal MF920 Webcam under four different lighting conditions (Daytime with natural light, Nighttime with low light, Nighttime with full light, and Nighttime with backlight).
The daytime snapshot shows a clear and bright image. On the other hand, the nighttime images appear slightly yellow or orange due to the room light that we used.
Spedal MF920 claims to have an automatic low-light correction that allows you to see even in dim light. However, we can see from the nighttime with backlight and full light images that this is not the case. These images appear dark, and it is hard to perceive the person's face clearly, especially in the nighttime with backlight setting. Another thing we noticed about the Spedal MF920 is that it adjusts slowly to change in lighting.
One of MF920's plus points is its ability to adjust the focus manually. Having an option to focus your webcam manually provides you the chance to focus on a specific object, such as the backpack in the background, that generally would not be captured using autofocus.
Another experiment we conducted uses this test chart, which can measure the Spedal MF920's white balance and sharpness level. This webcam image has quite an obvious distortion as the bottom corners of the test chart are slightly bent compared to the top corners, and there is also a slight blur on the top-right-hand side.
Color palette for white balance and exposure result | Resolution test result |
The picture on the left shows the color palette captured by the Spedal MF920 versus the actual color palette (shown in the box in the middle). This test measures the white balance and exposure. The Spedal MF920 displays lower brightness and vividness, which causes the color produced to appear darker than the actual color. The closest result would be the pink color (third row, second from the left). Other than that, the rest of the colors look less vivid than the actual color palette.
The picture on the right shows the resolution test result that measures the sharpness of the image. From this image, we can read up to the number 16. The Spedal MF920 has a 1080p resolution and shares a similar result with other 1080p cameras, which can print out to the number 16 from the resolution test result.
Next, we measure the image noise by taking a look at these RGB images. Here, we compare the Spedal MF920 (left) with Aukey FHD (right), another webcam with a wide-angle lens. On the left side, the Spedal MF920 shows a higher exposure and sharper image than the Aukey FHD. However, we can see that Aukey FHD produces less image noise than the Spedal MF920.
Comparison with Other 1080p Webcams
This section compares the Spedal MF920 Webcam with two other webcams with 1080p resolution and 30fps framerate, the AVerMedia CAM 313, and AUKEY FHD. These webcams have different focus types, which will be interesting to note during our comparison.
Technical Specifications ⚙️
Spedal MF920 | AUKEY FHD | AVerMedia CAM313 | |
---|---|---|---|
Megapixel | 2 MP | 2 MP | 2 MP |
Resolution | 1080p | 1080p | 1080p |
Framerate | 30fps | 30fps | 30fps |
Focus Type | Manual Focus | Autofocus | Fixed focus |
Field of View | 100° | 65° | 65° |
Built-in Mics | Dual Stereo | Dual Stereo | Mono, dual |
Price | $38.99 | $59.99 | $59.99 |
Here are side-by-side comparisons of the three webcams taken during the daytime with natural light.
Right off the bat, we can see these three webcams have different shades from one another. The Spedal MF920 (left) has a warm orangish tone, the AUKEY FHD (middle) has a dark greyish tone, while the AVerMedia CAM313 (right) produces the best white balance. All of them show a similar level of sharpness as they all have 1080p resolution. Spedal MF920 and AUKEY FHD both have a wide-angle lenses and can capture a broader range of views than the AVerMedia CAM313.
Next, let's compare these three webcams again during the nighttime with full light. The images taken during the nighttime have a higher contrast level than the daytime images. It is more apparent here that the AVerMedia CAM313 (right) has the best white balance compared to the other two. The shot taken by Spedal MF920 (left) shows the poor white balance that seems as if a "sepia" filter is applied to the image.
Last but not least, we compare this cropped image of the bookshelves in the background. The Spedal MF920 shows the least distortion than the other two webcams, as demonstrated by the image's outer edges. The distortion in AUKEY is the most obvious. However, MF920 shows the least sharpness level as the books' titles appear blurry due to the image noise.
These three webcams are very similar as they have almost the same technical specs, but the obvious winner would be AVerMedia CAM313. This webcam has the best white balance, sharpness and can reproduce the most accurate color compared to the other two.
Video Quality 🎥
Day Time Test
Night Time Test
Our next step was to test MF920's video quality by recording under two lighting conditions, daytime with natural light and night time with room lights. We recorded these videos in 1080p resolution with 30fps. Both videos show a sharp and clear appearance, especially in the daytime. It portrays a warm tone at nighttime, but it makes sense as our room light was yellow.
Overall, the video quality is pretty well-balanced and is decent for a $38.99 webcam.
Audio Quality 🔊
The Spedal MF920 has built-in dual noise-canceling microphones that can pick up voice within a 3 meters range (9.8ft), filtering out your background noise and produces a good sound quality. The audio quality produced is mediocre and makes our voice sound natural.
Product Design 🖌
One notable thing about the Spedal MF920 is that it has a gimbal base that has a 360° horizontal and 180° vertical rotation range. There are focusing knobs that allow you to adjust the angle according to your need to rotate to get the best view. It is also possible to attach this webcam on top of a tripod, allowing more flexibility. The webcam itself is pretty small and compact, which makes it easy to bring around.
Product Dimensions
Parameter | Webcam |
---|---|
Height | 2.12 in (5.4 cm) |
Width | 2.7 in (6.8 cm) |
Depth | 3.3 in (8.5 cm) |
Weight | 5.1 oz (145 g) |
Conclusion
For a wide-angle webcam priced at $38.99, the Spedal MF920 is a pretty good deal. This webcam has the same technical specifications (1080p, 30fps, 2-megapixel camera) as $60 webcams such as AUKEY FHD and AVerMedia CAM313. However, the poor white balance and slow lightings adjustment make it difficult to choose the Spedal MF920 over these $60 webcams when compared side-by-side.
Overall, the Spedal MF920 is a decent webcam with mediocre audio and image quality. However, our recommendation is to get the AVerMedia CAM313 instead of the Spedal MF920, as it produces much better quality images and videos with only $22 more.