Insta360 Link 2 Pro and Link 2C Pro Review
Looking for the best webcam for content creation, streaming, or video calls? In this video, I review and compare the brand new Insta360 Link 2 Pro and Insta360 Link 2C Pro to see which one deserves a spot on your desk.
We break down the specs, compare real-world image quality, test the Insta360 software features, and take a close look at pricing to see which webcam offers the best value. From sensor size and field of view to tracking, stabilization, and ease of use, this is a full side-by-side comparison designed for creators, streamers, and professionals alike.
If you’re upgrading your streaming setup, building a home office, or searching for the best webcam for YouTube, Zoom, or OBS, this review will help you decide whether the Link 2 Pro or Link 2C Pro is the better fit for you.
Below is a transcript of the video. Check out CGM for my full, written review of the Insta360 Link 2 Pro and the Insta360 Link 2C Pro
Transcript
Insta3 just dropped two brand new webcams, the Link 2 Pro and the Link 2C Pro. Let's have a look at them.
Hey everybody, welcome to the channel. I am Joe and today we are looking at the Insta3 Link 2 Pro and the Insta3 Link 2C Pro. In the box for both cameras, you're going to get the camera itself, a magnetic multiacess monitor mount, a USBA cable, a USBA to USBC adapter, and the documentation. Now, looking at the Link 2 Pro, you see that it's got a pan
A Look At The Insta360 Link 2 Pro and Link 2C Pro
And tilt gimbal. On the bottom, it's got actually connectors for a selfie stick and things like that, as well as electrical connectors for other devices. On the top, you'll see a full microphone. And on the back, you've got your USBA connection. You can see on the monitor mount, it's actually got two points of access. So, one to actually properly mount it on the monitor and the other one to be able to tilt forward a little bit if you need to make an adjustment. On the bottom of each of them, you're going to see a quarter inch thread, so you can mount these onto an arm or a tripod or something like that.
The 2C Pro obviously comes without the gimbal, but everything else is largely the same. You're going to have the USBC on the back. You've got the microphone up top, and because it can't tilt down when you're not using it, there is a little privacy shutter right here.
Comparing the Specs on the Link 2 Pro and Link 2C Pro
Now, when I say these cameras are the same, I absolutely mean it. They both have the same 1 over 1.3 in sensors. They both offer the exact same resolutions. They both have f1.9 aperture and 24 millimeter focal length. They both have an 83.9 degree field of view. They offer the same zoom capabilities, the same HDR capabilities, the same AI noise cancelling capabilities. The only difference is the gimbal.
But we've seen enough of this camera and this beautiful face here. Let's see what this face looks like on other cameras.
The Link 2 Pro's Video Quality
And so here we are starting with the Insta 360 Link 2 Pro. First thing we see is this is just everything as it is out of the box.
Uh, the tracking is turned on. So, if I move around, very smooth, very good. You can change the speed of it. If it's a little too jittery for you when it's going around, especially when you make little tiny moves, if you want it to be very gradual, you can make those changes in the app.
Overall though, I'd say color is very good. Detail is very good, depending on how much detail you want to be showing off on yourself. And the exposure is overall quite good. So, what I think it's worth doing right now is we're going to go into the Insta3 Link controller app and see what we can do from in there. And now, here we are in the app. We're using the preview window from the app itself. I'm not putting my picture over top of anything just for what that's worth.
The Insta360 Link Controller App
Let's have a look at what's going on around here. So, if you look at the bottom here, so this is actually when the camera is activated.
You can deactivate the camera here just by clicking that. And then that happens. And then we bring it back on. We wait a second while it fires back up. And there we go.
Here's where we're going to change our resolution if we so desire. So, you can click on that and you can see you've got 4K, 1080p, and 720p. And then 30, 25, and 24 frames per second.
Now, something I did notice, there's no 60 frames per second when you're looking at 1080p. We are going to stay in 1080p for the remainder of this portion just because there's some things I need to show you and they can't be done on 4K. So, we'll get into that in a second.
So, if we look across the bottom right now, first you're going to see the AI tracking, which is on, hence this. Then you're going to also see a little drop down next to that, and you bring that up, and it's single tracking or group tracking. So, if there were more of us in there, it would make sure it kept this all framed. It would make sure that it didn't cut anybody off, things like that.
Then you've got your whiteboard. So, what's going to happen here is it's going to actually frame up. If you have something in the background like that that it can frame up on, frame up on a whiteboard and then stay framed up on that so that while you're walking around and stuff, it's not trying to track you. It stays static so people can read what you've got going on.
Smart whiteboard. Same kind of thing, but it's going to use some AI to enhance what's on the whiteboard. So, if the writing's faint, it actually enhances it a little bit. Just makes everything a little bit easier to read for you.
And lastly, you have your desk view. It's going to turn your camera into a top down. And all you got to do is click this to do it. And then it does this.
Now, not showing up a whole heck of a lot right now. It doesn't do a really perfect top down angle. It does straighten it out and things like that, but right now you're just kind of getting my belly and all that, but it does flip it around and make it everything possible. So, if you were doing work here, you would be able to see it quite well. Like, hey, I just want to show off this American quarter that I have. Dope.
Now, when we look along the column over here, you're going to see a bunch of things. So, right now into the view category, we have view adjustment, and that's actually the joystick that's going to move your camera around if you're not autotracking.
Now, one thing I don't care for when this kind of frames itself up a little bit more headroom than I like to have. It centers my face, but that's not what you want. You want for good composition. You want that rule of threes. So, I like to just mess around with it just a bit to get it where I would like it to be more or less good. And center out like that. And then that's a little bit better for me.
Once you have the tracking and all that turned on, it's going to start moving around. But I've found that it's not going to recreate the giant headroom that you had before, as long as you've got this like this. If you switch away like we did with the desk view and then switch back, it kind of goes back to its default mode.
You can create presets here. So, what that's going to do for you is you can create framed situations. If you know, okay, I'm going to be standing back there and that's going to be one thing, I'm going to be sitting here and that's going to be another thing, you can switch between those different things.
Tracking settings. This is really going to matter when you're going back and forth more. So, you've got your head, you've got the half body, and you've got the whole body. It just means how much it's going to frame up. So, if I go back there and I'm on head, it's going to zoom in and kind of keep me as much head as possible. And then so on and so forth with the other ones. Obviously, it can't go whole body if you're too close.
If I clicked whole body right now, it's not going to show my feed. Plus, you got to pay extra for that anyways.
And then you have your pause track area. And what that's going to mean is you're going to open up these settings here. And then you can actually add zones that when you're in that zone, it stops tracking you around. So, like if I just didn't want, if I moved too far to the side here, for example, and I didn't want it to start tracking me, I could do that.
And then I could add another one as well to do the other side like this. And then so it would track me while I'm in this area, but not if I go too far to either side. And of course, you can do quite the opposite by just making one that's in the center like this. So, as long as I'm sitting here in frame, what that means is it's not going to track me around. But once I get up and start moving around, then it's going to start. That's the one that makes the most sense, to be honest.
Okay, next up is your tracking speed. So, right now it's set to ordinary, but then you have your other options. So, you've got your quick and your slow. And this is what I was talking about. I'm going to turn the tracking back on for a second. We're going to turn it to slow. Now, when I move around, it just takes a second longer to react. And in a situation like this, that's kind of what you want because I don't want the tiniest little moves that I make to be tracked. The faster one will start to kind of go with everything I do, and we don't want that.
Now, enable autotracking. Now, this isn't what you do when you gesture to turn on and off the tracking on your physical camera. This is just can you do it period. So, if I disable it from there, I can't enable it from on the camera.
And the last one is the tap to touch once to enable and disable tracking. So, there is an actual capacitive button that is on the camera itself, and when you touch it, it can actually turn it on and off. And it's a good way because I talk with my hands a lot and I could do this and all of a sudden it turned on the tracking and I didn't mean for it to get turned on. And then I could do it again and I could accidentally turn it off and now it's not happening.
So, if you want to make it really, really deliberate, you could do it by just pressing on here. And you can see that the tracking is now on. And then I can tap it again and turn it off.
And before we get out of this area, I forgot about one little space down here, and that's going to be your screenshot. So, you can just click that to take a screenshot of what you got here, or you can physically record directly from here. That's going to use the microphone in here and all that. I still recommend, as always, using some other external software.
Okay, so now we head ourselves over to the effects area, and this is where you're going to get a little bit more into the weeds about the actual physical picture that you got going on.
So, if we start up here and we go exposure. So, here's all the information that you actually have. So, first off, we've got our exposure in this kind of area. We're going to expand this for a second, and you can see that HDR is already turned on. And you can see that is now indicated over here as well.
You can see I can't select anything with exposure. And I put over here and it says after enabling HDR, manual exposure is temporarily not supported. So, we don't want to do that right now because we want to actually see what's going on.
So, right now it's still on auto exposure and it's going to take a second to kind of figure everything out. Let's go to manual exposure just to get some more options. So, we turn our ISO and then I can get a proper exposure here, as proper as I feel like. Ah, too low. As proper as I can get.
And then your shutter speed. Do the same stuff like so. And then you can even do a little bit of an exposure curve here. Whoa, too much. And do all of that.
You've got your autofocus. You've got your auto temperature. I'm going to put exposure back to auto here just because I don't want to play around with it so much. But temperature, we'll go manual. And then we'll find just the right balance. Like so. You see, it's very finicky, this one actually, I find.
All right, so we'll put that back to auto too because it was doing a pretty decent job by itself. Then you have your really basic stuff, your brightness, contrast, and all that kind of thing. I'm not going to mess around with that too much because I don't really see the need.
If we put the HDR back on, I actually find the HDR, once it sorts itself out a little bit, I actually find the HDR to be among the better HDRs on webcams as of late. I find that too many of them make things too noisy or does a lot of stuff that I don't really care for.
Antiflicker. If you've got certain lights that are flickering in the background, so you've got 50 Hz and 60 Hz. If you're shooting at 30 or 60 frames per second, you want to go to 60 Hz and that will take care of that.
Color presets. So, you can actually set up your color correction. So, that's kind of all this stuff, and you can set it up in different ways. If you want different looks for like, hey, I want my stream to look like this, I want YouTube videos to look like this, you can do that and then not do all of this stuff from scratch.
Background. So, it does do a smart background. You have to actually install some supplementary software that actually just takes like one second when you click on it. It'll prompt you if you want to do some of these things, but to do those now, we just click on them.
And then, so here's a quick background blur. It's not perfect. You can see a lot of artifacting around my head as I move. You can see because it's trying hard to kind of frame me. You can see like just around the edges it kind of has things in focus like that.
Then you can have just a more bokeh version. So, this is supposed to be more like when you're using a mirrorless camera or something like that. It's a lot cleaner just because it's a lot less of a change between this and this. Right? When you see real extremes, then you can see kind of the divide between them.
And you can then create the intensity from here. So, I can make it a lot less. I wanted just a little bit of a background blur because again it creates a little bit less intensity between the two things. And it just gives that look rather than trying to go too far with it.
You can add additional background stuff here just by clicking on this plus. And then if you have images or anything like that. Some people actually just like to clean their room behind them and then make that their background and then just have that. So then they've always got exactly what they want back there without, you know, having to worry about tidying up afterwards.
Then down here we have some virtual backgrounds. So, if you want to do something like this, you can just click on that and it creates a little background for you. You know, if you don't want the government tracking your movements or whatever, you don't want to get doxed, this is how you can go about that. And you can switch between those quite easily.
And again, you can add your own. So, you can be in space or you can do whatever the heck you want to do, or you can just live in this void.
All right, next up is makeup. And this is actually why I switched this to 1080p because this won't work without it. The tracking required just doesn't do it in 4K. So, you need to do this in 1080 if you want to do it. I don't know why you would.
My thinking is if you're the kind of person who wants to wear makeup and do yourself up, you're going to do it. But let's go through and see what this looks like anyways.
So, we're going to click on the blush first. And you can see I've got a little bit of lining now around the eye. So just the difference between the two. So it's doing something for sure. And it's actually doing a pretty good job tracking, if I do say so myself. Not that I would want it.
But then if we do it again, so this is a different one. And whoa. Now we're talking. And you can also change the intensity of these. So, if you don't want to be 1990s, you can back it off a little bit and be a little more nowish, I guess.
And you can go through all of the rest of these as well too and see what you can do to your face. But again, my recommendation, do these things to your actual face instead.
And then lastly, we're going to have some filters to work with. So, we've got this is our portrait filter. They're all doing little bits of things. This just softens me up a little bit. None of these are particularly drastic. It's making very subtle changes to you. It's not like you're going full sepia tone or anything like that, but it's making some color correction.
You can see I'm a little bit more blue in here now. It's a little bit more muted than the other one was. And then the neon really, really hits on the color, which if you have a very colorful room or something like that, you might actually like that a lot because it would really kind of make your whole scene pop.
And then clear is another kind of muted whatever. So, I don't really care for any of these things because I like to again set things up the way I want them, but it's nice to have them if color correction and things like that aren't a strength of yours.
Next, let's go into more. This is where you can turn on the gestures for the AI tracking and stuff. So, for example, if I want to enable AI tracking but I don't want my gestures to work, particularly this one, because that turns it on all the time, I can just turn it off. So now when I make the gesture, it doesn't actually do it, and that's good.
And then you've got your whiteboard gesture and your zoom gesture as well.
So, audio mode. Now, this is referring to the microphone on the physical camera. So, it's got voice focus. It'll do a little bit of noise reduction for you. And it's got voice suppression. And that's not what maybe some of you think it is. It's not going to get rid of your voice. It's going to get rid of other voices around you.
So, if you say you're in college or something like that and you're in a common space and you're having a conversation on Zoom or something like that, it will help remove some of the voices around you. So, it just isolates you just that much more.
And then you've got music balance. And what that actually does is kind of turns off all of the processing and just gives you the original audio without any noise suppression whatsoever. This is particularly good if you're playing music or something like that. That's why it's called music balance.
If you're playing guitar and you're singing, it's actually going to wipe out a little bit of the music to help isolate your voice more if you have voice focus on. So, that's what that's for.
And then in these other settings, I mean, they're pretty self-explanatory. Horizontal flip is going to do this horrible thing to you and remind you how not symmetrical you are as a human being.
Then you got your vertical flip, which I suppose this could be a thing. It might be necessary if you're mounting your camera somewhere and you may have to mount it upside down, and then this is when you would use that, obviously.
Now, smart adjustment. This is working independently of the AI tracking. This is going to keep you centered in the frame, but it's going to do it in the kind of way that doesn't include the pan, tilt, and zoom. It's just going to reframe the picture that exists.
Next, we got portrait resolution and high frame rate. Now, I turned this on because it had to restart when I did that. What this does, it actually allows you to shoot in portrait mode right directly from this. Now, it doesn't enter portrait mode. It doesn't actually take this and then crop it, nor does it rotate it and do that. What it does is it just takes the camera angle that you currently have and then makes it 9x6 instead of 16x9. So, you would have to manually do the tilt yourself.
Now, the high frame rate doesn't seem to have changed the options of frame rates that you get, nor does it say it will in the thing. So, I don't really know what that is.
Joe here from another part of shooting the video. I will say that there was just a problem with the actual restart of my application. That's why I wasn't seeing the higher frame rates before. But you can see now I'm in 4K 30. If I click on 1080, it's going to do the little switch. And now you can see that 50 and 60 frames per second are available here. So, that's totally fine and that works perfectly well.
And then lastly, we have enable low resolution. So, if you actually highlight over this, what that's going to do is going to create a low bandwidth mode. It's going to give you a 360p option on top of your 4K, 1080, and 720. I don't know why that's not just an automatic option in the UI, but I also don't know why many people would use it.
Probably for teleconferencing when it doesn't matter quite as much. But if you're going to have a camera that's this quality and this price, I don't know why you would give it, you know, 1998 resolution.
So, that is the Insta3 Link Pro 2. We can see everything that it can do, and it can do quite a lot. These are fantastic webcams, and they still remain on the upper echelon of the heap as well.
We're going to be doing very soon, I've been teasing this for a little while, we're going to be doing an overall webcam competition. We're going to take a lot of the best webcams from all sorts of brands, all sorts of types, and we're going to put them to the test against each other. And so stay tuned for that.
But now, I'm going to take you over to the Link 2C Pro, and we're going to see what the differences are. And this is the Insta3 Link 2C Pro.
The Link 2C Pro's Video Quality
So, right off the bat, we know we don't have the built-in gimbal. We just have the camera part, which is totally fine. And if we move around, well, I guess that's not really proof, seeing as you can turn it off on the Link 2 Pro as well.
First impressions is just the plug-and-play version of it all. I'm losing a little bit of brightness, a little bit of kind of like a vibrance in my face. Everything's just a little bit more muted, like it's on a filter, but it's not bad at all. It's nothing we can't work with.
Again, you have all of these different exposure options and things like that. You can make it the way you want it to be. It's just maybe not absolutely perfect out of the box.
So, we've jumped back into the software just for a second. We're not going to go through the whole thing again. We know how this stuff works.
The only differences are if you go into the view, you'll notice that the joystick stuff isn't here at all. Now, you can make view adjustments. You can zoom and then you can move the location of the frame around and things like that if you so desire to do that. You can then save those as presets as well.
I don't really see a huge purpose for it again, but again, if you're doing presentations maybe and you need to create a thing where you're zoomed in on something in the background, then okay, that makes sense.
But yeah, you just don't have the gimbal anymore. So that's not part of this. All of the effects you'll see are exactly the same, no changes whatsoever to any of these.
Now, if we go into the more, you're going to see gestures are just turned off. It's just part of the UI. If I turn them on, it's not going to do anything. The audio modes are the same. You have the horizontal and vertical flip, but not the other option. And then you can still do the portrait resolution and the low resolution if you are so inclined.
Side By Side Comparison | Which Will You Choose?
So these are the two cameras side by side. What do you think about them? The one on the left here is the Link 2 Pro and the one on the right here is the Link 2C Pro.
So, other than the tracking, I think that the pictures are overall quite good. I think the exposure and detail is a little bit higher on the 2 Pro as opposed to the 2C Pro, but I think that they're both fantastic pictures. And I remind you that this is exactly just the plug-and-play version.
If I play more with the color and things like that, there's no reason to think that I can't get this one to look like this one. But the advantages on the Link 2 Pro, just with the detail and things like that, so you can see this color is much more accurate on the left.
You can see a lot more detail and things. On the right, you can see it's just a little bit darker in places, but overall I think that it is really close and definitely close enough.
If you don't need the PTZ, then I think that the 2C Pro is a fantastic option.
So I was just sitting here editing and it occurred to me that I never actually test the microphones on webcams anymore. I just take for granted that it's something that we're not going to do. But we're so far advanced now, and I mean, these webcams are basically taking over, able to replace mirrorless cameras like half the time now.
So maybe it's worth actually giving these a listen.
Microphone Test On Both Cameras
So right now you're listening to the Link 2 Pro, and we're going to hear how that sounds.
Now, my expectation is that the Link 2C Pro is going to be the same, given it's the same camera and same microphone, but we'll hear it in one second.
Okay, and now we're listening to the Link 2C Pro right here. It's going to be probably the same thing. Now it is set up for voice isolation and things like that. So, I'm hoping we're not hearing too much room noise or anything.
Very curious to hear how this actually picks up.
So, what do you think about the Insta3 Link 2 Pro and Link 2C Pro? Let me know down in the comments.
Conclusions
Also, let me know which one you would prefer or which one suits your needs better. And a part of what might suit your needs better is the price.
The Link 2 Pro is $249.99 US and the Link 2C Pro is $199.99 US. So, there's a $50 difference there, which can be significant, especially if you don't think you're ever going to need the gimbal. That's some good savings.
If you enjoyed this video, or at least enjoyed the video long enough to make it to this point, make sure to hit the like and subscribe on this. Hit the notification bell so you know when I have new videos coming out.
Actually, next week, can't say who, but I'm actually doing a very similar video to this with a different company. So, make sure to keep an eye out for that.
But this is where we're going to leave it, my friends. Thank you so much for watching, and until next time, let's get to
