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Tesco Value Webcam
by feefeedooya
I have a few family members over seas and keep in touch two or three times a month via the web cam and skype for keeping the price down. I am not great with technology so need things to be as simple as possible. I bought the Tesco value webcam as it cost only £5.00 that's alot cheaper than others that were on offer in Tesco at the time. ... On making the purchase i had no idea if the web cam was going to be good or not but for a fiver i took the chance.
The webcam comes in a small cube shaped box with Tesco value written on it and the blue value stripes. Inside the box is the webcam, instruction booklet , installation cd. I chose to set the webcam up on our pc rather than my laptop as it sits on the desk beside the monitor.
Setting up the webcam was easy as i read the instructions before hand, these were clearly laid out and simple to follow. I put the disc in my drive and followed the installation process on the screen. The webcam comes with a wire connected to the webcam and the other part is a usb connector and that plugs into the usb port on my pc.
The webcam actually looks nice, its made from black plastic and ball shape with a small base stand with legs that steady the webcam, you can also clamp it to the pc or laptop but only if you have a flat screen but i don't. It has a small button on the top to change the settings of the webcam and a small silver rim around the lense.
There are a few different things can be done with the webcam like taking still pictures, loads of effects like changing the focus, colours and brightness. I often have to adjust the brightness as my sitting room is really dark even during the day.
If you want to put funky fun frames or images around the picture the soft wear can do that and gives a good selections of frames like bunch of balloons and prison cell bars etc all a bit of fun.
The focus is a niggle with the webcam and takes a few minutes for it to sort itself out but to start with its blurry but during the use it is clear and picks up my movement fine. Its nice for my family to be able to see me, just last night i used my webcam to show of my new tattoo.
A cheap webcam that's simple to use. I recommend the Tesco value webcam for the people like me that need just a basic webcam to use for chatting.
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Tesco Value Webcam
by northernlovely
I was sceptical when I purchased the Tesco Value Webcam, but I was pleasantly surprised..
-- Price & Availablity --
The Tesco Value Webcam is available from larger Tesco stores and from the Tesco website via their Direct catalogue service. It is priced at £4.97 making it one of the cheapest webcams around, ... rivalled only by other supermarkets own brands.
-- What's in the Packet --
The webcam comes with an instructional manual and warranty information. It is packaged in fairly plain cardboard with the Tesco Value branding.
-- Looks --
I had an old Logitech webcam about 10 years ago and to be honest this Tesco Value looks a lot like it - round, like an eye, styled in black and silver. It has a small stand built in. It is adjustable on a ball hinge to get the right viewing angle. Overall I'd say it does look a bit dated and the plastic's a bit cheap and flimsy but at least it is in black rather than beige! It looks OK though - certainly passable at less than a fiver.
The webcam has a snapshot button which takes still pictures like a camera (quality to be reviewed as below).
-- Setup --
A breeze, as most USB 2.0 devices tend to be - I just plugged mine in and my computer picked it up. I was Skype-ing within ten minutes.
Taking photos is easy, too, though you get a mirror image photo rather than a right way around one! But it's good if you want to take a quick snap to post online.
-- Quality --
Well, in a word, low. It's only a 400 x 500 low resolution picture you get and you need to have the light exactly right in the room (if you have a lamp behind you your face is totally un-viewable, and if you have one too near your face you appear orange!). Once you've got your optimal setup, though, it's more than passable especially for web streaming. You can record video to email, too, at 30 frames per second, a decent rate that's not too jumpy. Overall though it's in no way comparable to a £50+ webcam, or a digital camera, but for video calls it's spot on, and great to use with lower bandwidth connections, too.
The snapshot feature is handy but low quality, but a nice feature to have. The digital zoom is again, a nice feature to have on a low cost webcam, but in practice it's not something I really use (I go for the low tech option of moving the camera closer!). Obviously you will experience image quality loss if you zoom in on anything but if you are just wanting to frame your face then it's handy.
-- Recommend? --
Yes, I would. Even though the quality is at times low the webcam when used for video calling (and that's mostly what webcams are used for) is spot on, and really there is no need to pay more for the casual user. The price is amazing - under a fiver, and with everyday use, the camera will last and last.
-- Final Word --
If you're looking for a cheap and cheerful webcam, go for the Tesco Value model. I will award it four out of five - it's fabulous for the money.
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Trust Chat & VoIP Pack Portable CP-2120p
by FangleToot
I guess I've had this webcam / headset combo for the better part of a year now.
I wanted a headset in order to use Skype more efficiently as I was freelancing in an open plan office. I had already tried an old USB handset which unfortunately didn't work too well with a laptop: upon install it was fine, but wasn't after ... rebooting or disconnecting. I was thinking of paying around £55 for a wireless headset, when I discovered this little gem in my local John Dyas where I hadn't even thought of looking for a headset. It was remarkably cheap (£10 or £15) and included a webcam, so I thought I'd give it a go.
The webcam - it's head is more versatile than an owl's! It can be used on a flat desk, perched on the top rim of the laptop screen or hung from a bookshelf or venetian blind as it's got a very generous 6ft long USB cable. Having said all that, I've not had any real need to use it, not least because I bought a new laptop which has an integrated webcam.
The headset is what I was really interested in. It has an even more generous 8ft long cable with two jacks (microphone and earphone) which in this case turns out to be a lot more plug n play friendly than a USB connection. The thin, springy and foldable neckband with the sensibly-sized earpads really are "one-size fits all" as well as being very comfortable to wear and can easily cope with a boring hour-long conference call. In fact you can push the microphone back as they are fine to wear all day for listening to music as well. Another excellent factor is that this design and construction quite happily folds up with no fears that it is too fragile to squeeze inside an already overburdened laptop bag.
No problems with XP or Windows 7 - in fact no problems whatsoever. Absolute bargain!
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