5.0 Megapixel USB PC Webcam Camera for PC Laptop Noteboo
by Generic
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.96 You Save: $26.99 (90%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of 5.0 Megapixel USB PC Webcam Camera for PC Laptop Noteboo
Customer Review: Great webcam for skype
Summary: 4 Stars
I was originally going to do a video review, however the webcam didn't come with any recording software, and I don't have any, so here is a breakdown. If you want to see what the video quality is actually like, look at the other reviews, because they're about right.
This webcam is great. The only reason I got one was for skype, and being on a college budget, I didn't want to spend any money at all. I got this from amazon for about $6 dollars, the total cost came to about $9 dollars with shipping. Completely worth it in my opinion. Here is a break down of the pros and cons.
Pros
Super cheap
Very nice quality, I can actually believe it's 5 mega pixels
Non obtrusive, small design
Worked immediately upon plugging in (windows XP sp3)
4 led lights with dimmer switch on cable for dark conditions
Cons
No software of any kind
No microphone
no auto focus
All and all I'm happy with this product. It does get a little laggy depending on what your system build is. For example, it is slightly laggy and blurred in skype on my windows xp machine (pentium 4), however if I plug it into my PS3 the video is very high quality and not laggy at all. The blurriness and lag is completely acceptable for me, and I'm going to build a new pc with an i7 processor in a few weeks, so I expect the problem to go away. The lack of auto focus is a minor annoyance, think of how often you'll need to change the focus. You're more than likely not going to need to change it at all. If you do though, the silver focusing ring has an acceptable depth of focus.
Bottom line
If you have a microphone, don't want to spend a lot of money, and don't care about fluttery video effects, get this webcam for cheap. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Customer Review: Difficult setup on my PC, but very good otherwise
Summary: 4 Stars
I have an older PC running Windows XP SP3, so when I needed a webcam I wanted something light on my CPU and my wallet.
This camera arrived in a box as others have said, with no instructions or CD, so I expected that. The box states compatibility with Windows XP SP2 and Vista, and also that it's made in China but no brand or model, no surprise there. Framerate is maximum of 30fps @ 320x240 and 15fps @ 640x480. The camera itself pans and tilts, the base is a sort of no-slip pad which is detachable. Manual focus works fine, and there is a switch on the USB cable to control the 4 LED lights.
When I plugged it into a USB 2.0 port, Windows XP was unable to recognize the device. I booted into Windows 7 and it worked, so I knew the camera was not defective. So I searched for hours to find anything that could help me. Info on this camera is in short supply. Here's what finally worked thanks to the help from DavesDrivers:
1. Disabled Avast security suite for a bit
2. Enabled all windows update services
3. Plugged camera into a USB 1.1 port
4. Camera was magically detected, and worked
5. Opened Device Manager, located Enhanced USB controller, and updated the driver to the latest.
6. Switched camera back to USB 2.0 and it works too!
So obviously this was a problem with my computer rather than the camera. I'm sitting now in a room with one dim light, and it's a bit grainy but I've seen worse. In the dark, the grain and response time are poor but the colors are accurate. You can try the LEDs, they are very bright and distracting, but they do work. In short, use enough light and you should have no problems. Impressive - I've no idea how they did this for the price!
Customer Review: Cheap, sturdy, and it does what it's supposed to do.
Summary: 5 Stars
A lot of reviews have faulted this product for not being a true "5 megapixel". I have not actually tried taking any photos with this product, so I will not be able to address if this is really true or not. I have mainly used this webcam with things like Windows Live Messenger and Skype. I give this product a 5-star rating simply because it does what it does in a very simple and elegant fashion. You receive the item from your doorstep, you unbox the item, you hook up the item to your USB port, it installs the item, you restart all your video-capable software (to help with the auto-detection, or you could do this manually under your software's option settings respectively), and you are good to go. That's it. No driver hunting necessary (my platform is Windows 7). For 10 dollars, it does what it does very well, and that is to help me communicate with my family and loved ones easily. On another note, this product seems to remind me of Sauron's "Eye" tower in Lord of the Rings. If you have a glass-top table, the camera's suction-based bottom can be used to keep the camera in place, another nice touch. It even features 4 leds to help with lighting. While it is good, it does seem a little blinding if the camera is in front of you. Again, if you're using it for day-to-day video use, this product will do its job well.
P.S. There are drivers out there that will allow you to configure this web camera even further. Read through the reviews here to find it. You can add snow, etc. Just be careful though, Sometimes, that custom driver locks up, so if you don't want to deal with the hassle, then just ignore this suggestion.
Customer Review: Mostly good in my experience.
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall, I think this is a great little cam. It worked on some of my and my friends' computers incredibly well, and others not at all. I think this has been previously mentioned, but this cam is NOT Mac compatible (at least in our experience). I think I read somewhere that you might be able to get 3rd party software drivers for the Mac to get the cam to work and adjust the settings, but it's not free. I also couldn't get this to work on my desktop running XP (I haven't given up yet though). It worked really well on the laptops we tried, running XP, Vista, and even the Asus EEE Linux (Debian based, Xandros flavored but Asus's own particular OS). After a lot of searching, we found the site Tokbox.com, which is a flash (I think) based video chat site. Basically you can create a login and then login to various and sundry im chat services (GTalk, AIM, MSN & Yahoo at least) to invite friends to join a chat session on the Tokbox website. It's a great little service.
I can't give it five stars because it's not 100% compatible or at least extraordinarily difficult to get to work if your computer doesn't auto detect it, though I'm glad to see the shipping price has come down a little. If I can get it to work on my parents' computer, I'll pick up a couple more.
Thanks for this product! (I almost forgot to mention that it's super cute and I love the adjustable LED lights great for dim rooms when using the camera, and lighting up the keyboard even when not.)
Customer Review: nice cheap web cam
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great little USB web cam for very little money. When testing a dozen or so different web cams, I found this the easiest to use and the least expensive.
This cam does not come with software, and does not have fancy features like zoom, autofocus, and subject tracking. It is fixed focal length and focus, like a cheap still camera.
I found the lack of software to be a plus, as most all webcam software borders on being malware with its invasive and obnoxious effects on Windows. I have not tried it with Linux yet, but will update this review when I do.
This camera worked out of the box on standard Windows camera drivers, and for simple web conferencing, it is great. I have used it with the Elluminate service, and it functions quite adequately.
If you need a basic, generic, USB webcam and don't want to shell out nearly $100 for a good one, give this beastie a try. It isn't fancy, but it works.
UPDATE FEB. 2009
I have also now tried this camera on the MSI Wind Barebone computer running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. It works well with Linux, too.
UPDATE July 2009
I recently got my 5th one of these cameras, and it arrived damaged (poor packaging). I emailed HDE through Amazon and immediately got a response and they sent a new camera. Customer service like that is just darned hard to find. Good job!