While I believe $800 is way too much I do actually believe the screen is an extremely expensive component. It's a 120hz microled screen with a very good webcam. I wouldn't be surprised it's the most expensive part on a mbp.
Then why does the notch exist? And compared to what is it crap, webcams have always been utter shit if you compare it to smartphones or dedicated video cameras.
I made some side by side photos and videos (that I don't want to share because of privacy) of Macbook Pro 2015, M1 Macbook Air 2020, 16" M1 Macbook Pro 2021, and the front facing camera of a cheap android phone.
My conclusion:
- the only good camera is the front facing camera of the cheap android phone
- the 2015 MBP camera has low resolution and lots of noise, but the image at least looks natural
- the images from the M1 Macs look very similar. They added extreme smoothing to hide the noise. The result is that there is no details at all in the images. Skin looks unnaturally smooth and facial hair is a blurry mess. When you move your head, there are weird artefacts near the eyes.
- comparing M1 Macbook Air 2020 and M1 Macbook Pro 2021 looks similar, except the smoothing seems even stronger on the 2021 Macbook Pro
- even in perfect lighting the resolution of the camera is very low. There is no way this is actually a 1080p camera. The 720p image of the 2015 Macbook Pro has more detail than the cameras in the new Macs.
- the only good thing about the cameras in the M1 Macs is the low light performance. The algorithm is pretty good at producing a usable image even in very low light.
It's really not a good camera. It really sucks. Everything else about this laptop is perfect: The display, the speakers, the keyboard -- everything is wonderful, apart from the fact that whenever I facetime with someone I look like a blurry mess.
