When it comes to the best webcams you can buy, the original Insta360 Link has long been one of our favourites: delivering top-quality video and audio in a stylish design. Now, Insta360 has released a sequel to that impressive camera: the Insta360 Link 2.
I'll dig into what's different and what's new with this model as I go through this review, but there's again a lot to like in what Insta360 has put together here. If you're shopping at the more premium end of the webcam market, then this is certainly going to appeal.
Meanwhile, if you're looking for a laptop to go along with your webcam, we've got plenty of buying advice in that regard too: when you've finished with this review, you might want to check out our guides to the best lightweight laptops or the best MacBooks for students.
Insta360 Link 2: price and availability
The Insta360 Link 2 webcam is available to buy now, and will set you back £199.99 / $199.99 / AU$329.99 if you buy it direct from the Insta360 website.
The widget embedded above on this page will tell you where you can pick it up online for the cheapest possible price right now – and in the UK it's available from other retailers, such as Amazon.
Insta360 Link 2 review: unboxing and setup
Open up the tightly packed Insta360 Link 2 box, and you'll find that as well as the webcam itself, you get a magnetic mount for affixing it to different surfaces and laptop lids, a USB-C-to-USB-C cable, and a USB-C-to-USB-A adapter – so you can get started right away, no matter what type of USB ports you've got on your laptop or desktop computer.
The webcam will work instantly, as soon as you plug it in, on either Windows or Mac. Full marks to Insta360 for including a USB cable that's a decent length too – around 150 centimetres (nearly 60 inches) by my measure – which gives you a lot more flexibility when it comes to positioning it around your desk.
To really get going with the webcam, you need to download the free Insta360 Link Controller software for Windows or macOS, which is really simple to setup.
Brilliantly, you don't need to sign up for yet another account with your email address to use the app, which is the case with so many peripherals these days – and leaves many of us with a hundred accounts and endless promotional emails to deal with. So thanks, Insta360, for letting me use your webcam without registering it.
I'm also a fan of the webcam's design and build: solid, stylish, and reassuringly weighty. There's a magnetic pad on the base of the webcam, and you can opt to attach this to the included mount if you're setting it up on a laptop lid or monitor.
Insta360 Link 2 review: features and performance
The Insta360 Link 2 shows a subtle green ring when it's active, and when it's not being used it'll point down at its base demurely so you can be sure it's not spying on you (you can also manually turn it to face downwards). It's all neatly done, and feels a bit less clumsy that the privacy shutters that are often used on webcams.
In terms of the raw capabilities, you can record video at a resolution of up to 4K at 30 frames per second, and there's a 1/2-inch sensor inside that'll capture more light and detail than a lot of competing webcams. That's certainly true based on my testing – it performs admirably when light is at a premium.
Get the Insta360 Link Controller software up and running and this is where the fun really starts: the program offers a plethora of different features and options to play around with. You can adjust the colours and exposure, add filters and backgrounds, tweak the brightness and contrast, and plenty more (the HDR mode is particularly adept at balancing light and shade in the frame).
Thanks to the gimbal base, the camera can automatically follow your face and keep you in shot, even zooming along the way – or you can adjust all of this manually. You can control the webcam with gestures, have it focus on a whiteboard in shot, or something laid out on your desk, flip the feed horizontally or vertically, and even record video in portrait.
Add in some advanced noise-cancelling capabilities for your microphone, autofocus that adjusts as the scene in front of the webcam changes, and a mobile app so you can control the camera from your phone, and it's one of the most comprehensive webcam packages you're going to find at the moment.
And I can report it all worked flawlessly when I was testing the Insta360 Link 2, especially the video tracking. It makes more of a difference than you might think to know you'll always be in the frame on a video call, without having to constantly check on your video feed or sit perfectly still in one place.
Insta360 Link 2 review: verdict
The Insta360 Link 2 is a fantastic webcam: it's really well built and designed, it offers top-notch video and audio, it's really easy to set up, and it offers just about every feature you could possibly want. If you just need the basics, it's great – if you need advanced functionality as well, then you're covered there too.
It's the type of webcam you can use to start a yoga fitness channel on YouTube, or present reports to the executive board, or run livestreams on Twitch, and it all works effortlessly. I couldn't get the face tracking or auto zoom to make a mistake, or catch it out with low-light either. If you want the best webcam in the business, then this should certainly be right up there in your thinking.
All this, and it comes in substantially cheaper than the Insta360 Link too – the high price of the previous webcam model was one of the only drawbacks to it, and Insta360 has solved that problem here too. It's hardly a budget option, of course, even at this lower price, but it represents great value for a product so accomplished.
Also consider
We can't really mention the Insta360 Link 2 without mentioning the Insta360 Link 2C: it gives you everything you get with the Link 2, including the camera quality, but doesn't have the gimbal so it can't swivel and follow you around (though it can do some zoom tricks). It's £149.99 / $149.99 / AU$249.99 and might be a better buy for some.
Another webcam that's able to hold its own against the Insta360 Link 2 is the Obsbot Tiny 2. It offers a lot of the same tracking and enhancement features as the webcam we've reviewed here, and has a polished software program to go along with it – but it remains significantly more expensive than the Insta360 camera.
