What would be the benefit in a camera facing away from the user?
It would be unused in 99% of use cases and the other 1% a external camera is more functional.
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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walking around with the laptop showing people stuff, would be EXTREMELY useful to me
You seem to be in the minority there, maybe an external clip-on webcam is a better solution? I doubt a back-facing webcam would be used very much because most people use laptops like a take-home work station, and they use phones to show things to people (I'm sure there's a good reason you're not doing that, it's just what most people do)
There are some laptops where the screen flips over, I have one of those laptops. I have to say I only use that feature like once every 3months or so.
Tablets (including iPads) have rear-facing cameras.
Because tablets are not normal PCs, but rather big smartphones, which are expected to have cameras.
YOU'RE NOT A NORMAL PC!
Tablets don't have keyboards permanently on. This makes it easier to pick up and take pictures with a back camera.
A lot of extra resources, development, and cost to put a second camera on the back
Vs
Turn your laptop around
Why would you be sitting behind the screen? If you need to film a conversation between two people with one webcam...have the webcam face their profiles
To answer your question directly- because it wouldn't serve a need that users typically have.
have you never been in a workshop and wanted to show someone what you're working on? it would be awesome to just be able to flip the camera and walk over
A 30€USB webcam can do it, or simply turning around the laptop. Moreover, corporate have nice video conferencing room often with multiple camera, so you can select what you want to show. Finally, when I want to show a prototype to management, I rather invite them to the lab, or take the time to edit a video (even a smartphone camera one) for people in remote. Avoids the pitfalls of bringing something to a meeting room and starting it on the fly
I wouldn't suggest that there is no use for this kind of camera. Yours is a good example. But for the cost and risk of damage, that is not something that most would want by default in a laptop.
Also I have a phone with a camera for that purpose
I mean, I would turn the laptop around. Or the webcam on the PC. Or use my phone for the call?
What’s on the other side of the screen that would possibly be worth taking a picture or video of? Unless you’re in public, I guess, in which case — creepy.
Plus, consider that a laptop screen is usually angled backwards so the camera would be pointed towards the ground unless it’s also rotatable, which means extra moving parts (i.e. things that could break).
I honestly can’t think of any scenario in which this would actually be useful.
I honestly can’t think of any scenario in which this would actually be useful.
Nothing useful, but pondering this unearthed a deeply buried memory. Way back in the day I jailbroke my iphone 4. There was a theme you could instal through Cydia called “Glasklart” that replaced your icons with beautiful hand crafted transparent ones. There was also a program that let you use your away-facing camera’s preview pane as a homescreen wallpaper. The result of combining the two was seriously beautiful for the half hour my battery would last haha.
As an aside, wow both of those old things are still up on Cydia too. I switched to android and stopped following all things jailbreak, but it looks like Glasklart kept receiving updates all the way into 2017
So your use case is having your desktop show a live view of what’s on the other side of the screen to make it appear transparent? Okay.
What if it’s just your desk and the wall behind it?
If it’s just empty desk back there, then you can prop your phone up and have it play cool nature videos
Just use a cool nature video as your desktop background instead? Pretty sure that’s possible on most systems nowadays. MacOS actually does this by default already.
think about a workshop, calling your boss and explaining how a project is going. You could show the CNC machines working or a broken machine. Extremely useful
Why bring a laptop onto a filthy factory floor when the phone in your pocket does the same thing?
"Hey boss we got a problem. Yeah, let me just try to fit your laptop with two cameras I am calling you with in this tight and filthy space in a broken machine to show you. Just one seconzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZzzzzzZZZZZZZ"
... 2 minutes later a phone call:
"Yeah boss I fried another one of your expensive laptops with two cameras. Yeah coolant and chips dripped on the keyboard again. No I didnt smash it between the spindle and turret this time. It didn't fall into the chip conveyor brimming with coolant, lube oil, chips, and swarf either. Anyway, your machine's still fucked up and now your laptop is too. I will hang up my telephone you do not pay for and text you pictures or video now."
Short of smashing it with the turret I've done all this to my phone that has 6 cameras. Shook and wiped the shit right off with a rag. A working machine most of the time looks exactly like a broken machine. If the boss can't figure out what the problem is without it being a zoom call you've got a bigger tool problem outside the machine.
Just use your smartphone to call him then.
In my case, it's because people don't like all my pictures of the wall behind my computer screen.
on the streets
"Hey, can you take a picture of this?"
"Brb, unpacking my backpack to get out my laptop"
🤣
Thank fuck they don't.
It would have the same issue as these AI glasses. People will say they aren't recording you or whatever, completely ignorant to the fact that they are not the ones in control of their devices. And if many laptops had that, the same Big Tech creatures would salivate over software updates to utilize this surveillance more.
Why? No one ever needed this.
i would use it
Creeper no creeping
what?
My surface pro from work has this, though I can’t say I’ve ever used it in all these years.
It's just not as useful as the rear-facing camera on a phone or tablet. You can't aim it easily, so it's stuck pointing slightly downward at the surface it's sitting on, unless you're interested in making your screen harder to see.
Plus it's more expensive for a feature that few people would find useful.
There's this neat laptop by Honor (the "MagicBook Art 14" I believe, I think it has the option of either a Snapdragon X Elite or the Intel Core Ultra series processors...) where the webcam magnetically attaches and can be flilled both ways, and tucks in to the side when it is not needed, so the display doesn't have a notch/hole.
It's a gimmicky feature though, most people don't need something like that, and the people that do have other ways to go about it (e.g. document scanner, smartphone, mirrorless/DSLR camera). Most laptop webcams aren't very good anyways
For PCs, I guess you could mount a webcam the other way? For most people you would only see wall.
Thanks for sharing, that is a neat design.
There have been several laptops/tablet pcs that have done this. Microsoft Surface and its clones from HP, Dell, Lenovo etc. did this.
That camera would be facing the wall. It’s about 6 inches from the back of the monitor to the wall. Also I do not want a camera built into my monitor. Just another thing to break. If I need a web cam I’ll go to my closet and get the camera and plug it into the pc usb port.
Ive had a laptop that had this. You coud turn the webcam part around.
Damn, some commenters are just being rude. It's not a ridiculous question and this is the community for it, even if it was, isn't it? It's no real stretch of the imagination to wonder why if phones have great cameras and tablets have good cameras, why don't laptops offer anything close? I agree, the bulk of the laptop makes it awkward and the demand is low when "everyone" in the primary markets already have a camera phone in their pocket
Imagine the abuse girls would further have. Girls are LANning while boys are Stanning...
i don't see how a laptop would be used for that, phones are an issue but a big laptop pointing directly at you is pretty obvious
You'd be surprised what an erection makes people do.