Every week the PCMag software team meets face to face, even with several of its members being off site. How? We use Skype, which allows multi-party video conferencing with up to 10 participants, even without springing for Skype for Business. For a while, we used a Logitech Orbit AF for our meetings, but we recently tried AVer's VC520 Conference Camera ($999.99). The VC520 has contributed to a noticeable leap in immediacy, in terms of the remote paricipants seeing us, and us hearing them with more presence. That makes the VC520 worthy of our Editors' Choice award.

Hardware

The VC520's camera looks like the offspring of a missile launcher and a telescope. It measures 7 by 5.5 by 7.2 inches (HWD). The big lens may be intimidating to some, but not to the extroverted members of the PCMag software team. The lens is large because it has a 12x zoom ratio, with an aperture that opens to f/1.8 at the widest angle and narrows slightly to f/2.8 when zoomed all the way in. Its housing is not as slick as that of the Logitech ConferenceCam Connect, but the AVer camera is heavy and sturdy, so you don't have to worry about it sliding around on the table. It can also be mounted to a wall with the included bracket.