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Brian Broke It

For my day job, I am on calls most of the day. Most days I’m on video calls for 4-6 hours. One of my pet peeves about my old Macbook Pro is the webcam isn’t great. This is further complicated when using the computer with the lid closed. I watched Opal launch the C1, and then more recently I saw they released the Tadpole.

The C1 was Opal’s flagship camera that launched during the pandemic, and was tapped as a Mac-only webcam. The Tadpole was supposed to be the cross platform portable high quality camera that could be sold to the masses and used for all.

I purchased it and got it in the mail a few days later. Once I received it, I immediately recognized a problem with it. The damn cord was too short! While I understand it is portable, the cord really could have been 6 inches longer and probably worked just fine. If I put a USB extension cable on it, the other killer feature is tucked behind my monitor — the touch to mute function!

For someone with an M1 Macbook Air or Pro and if you work exclusively on the go, it might be a good upgrade, but for people who are full WFH, or are at a desk often I would go with something with a longer cord attached to it like the Logitech MX Brio Ultra — that gets bonus points for being fully Windows and Mac compatible.