Finally, an excuse to upgrade to video chat

Author's Rating:

Pros: Small, powerful camera with great bundled software and helpful image corrections in most lighting conditions

Cons: Lag, somewhat flimsy, designed mainly with laptops in mind

The Bottom Line: 
If you don't have a webcam, or want a nice one for your laptop, look for this on sale and snag a fun little gadget with only a few flaws.

Author's Review
I had been avoiding purchasing a webcam for a while now, but when my brother got one, I decided to jump on the bandwagon so we could video chat. I had only some experience with them in the past - I liked our old Logitech webcam - so I didn't know exactly what to look for beyond size and proclaimed features. But after trying the Creative Live! Cam Notebook Pro, I know I made the right choice.

The basics

What you get is a nice little webcam designed specifically for notebooks, but which can be adapted to your desktop setup if you're clever. The camera has a spring-loaded gripper to mount to the top of your screen, and can rotate through 270 degrees to look at people behind the screen (it even inverts the image when you do this, which is very helpful). The camera comes bundled with some nice software, including a very user-friendly installation, Advanced Video FX for fun editing and filtering, the Live! Cam Suite of photo and video editing software, and SightSpeed/Orb for easy video conferencing. You'll have the camera up and running in just a few minutes, and you can play around with the software or go chat on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and the like.

The quality of the camera is very high for its size. It can take 1.3 megapixel photos and record video at up to 640x480 at up to 30 frames per second, which is surprising to me. It automatically compensates for various lighting conditions, and can also be adjusted manually. There is a cool face tracking feature that will keep you centered on the screen if you move around slightly, as well.

The camera can run on USB 2.0 or 1.1, depending on your setup.

What's Included

You get a lot in the box when you purchase this camera. Since it's a laptop device, they are considerate enough to include a case, as well. Here's what you get:

Creative Live! Cam Notebook Pro
Instruction Manual
Soft carrying case
Headset/mic combination
CD software containing:
Creative Live! Cam Center
Creative Live! Cam Manager
Creative Live! Cam Console
Creative Photo Manager
Creative Photo Calendar
SightSpeed
Yahoo! Messenger
Multi-language User's Guide

The headset isn't great, but I needed one anyway, and it was a nice inclusion.

Requirements

This device seems to be for PC users only. Sorry Macs, no dice. I also don't see Vista listed, but I can't confirm or deny future compatibility.

Pentium® III 550MHz
Windows® 98SE/Me/2000/XP/XP 64-bit
256MB RAM
200MB HDD
CD-ROM
USB 1.1/2.0

The Good

I was pleased with how easy it was to set this camera up in terms of software. In the past I had to really fight the computer to get it to recognize the device, and this one was a breeze to set up, even including a software/driver update checking routine.

I appreciate the ability to rotate the camera, and the fact that it will invert the image to show you the correct orientation when you do so. For my desktop mount, I have to put it backwards to get it to fit properly. The software also allows you to manually rotate the image in increments of 90 degrees, so you can mount it however you like.

The image correction is very helpful in varying lighting conditions. As you move your head from the screen, you can see the software compesnating so that you are always illuminated to the best of its ability, which is quite helpful.

As for compatibility, I can't complain. It runs on almost any IBM clone with as little as 266 MB of RAM, and can use USB 1.1 or 2.0. It claims to be compatible with Yahoo, AIM, Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Skype, and though I haven't confirmed all of these, I don't see why it wouldn't be true.

The size can't be beat. The device is very lightweight, and about the size of a small pack of gum. It's very easy to move around, but might be easy to break as well.

The Bad

My main complaint is that the mount is intended exclusively for laptops. The extension is at most 14 mm, which is probably not as deep as a home monitor (even my LCD), so you'll have to mount to something else for those purposes. The USB cord is also quite short (maybe 2-3 feet), so it's a stretch to reach for some desktops without an extension cable.

My next big complaint is the lag. This thing has a fairly significant delay between what it sees and what it displays on your screen, much more so than my previous camera. Looking at myself, I can see back in time by around 0.5-1.0 seconds, which is quite disturbing, and makes it feel like you're on one of those telecasts from the Middle East with all the delay. I wish this were improved some, but this is the price you pay for getting such high bandwidth.

Some of the features don't seem to work too well on a desktop setup. For example, the face tracking software doesn't know what it's looking at from more than a few feet away, and just zooms in on the center of its image, rather than on my face. I'll have to keep messing with it, but I don't feel like this was fully developed before release.

The headset microphone/earpiece isn't great, so don't get your hopes up. The camera itself feels a little flimsy, and rotating it or changing the focus knob feels like it will compromise the life of the device. I don't like this feeling, but there is a lot of machine packed into a very small frame, and quality is often sacrificed in order to do this.

Overall

In total, this is a fun little device if you can get it on sale and not spend too much. If you plan to use it at home, go for a more robust model that is designed for home use, but if you want it to travel with, you can't beat the features, the portability, the convenience/ease of use, or the capabilities you will gain with all the included software. It may suffer some from flimsy build quality and a noticeable lag, but it's still got a lot to offer. If you can find it on sale, or just want a nice webcam for your laptop, go for it.