~Remember thinking about how great it would be to own a webcam? Remember imagining how great it would be to have a video chat with a friend over the Internet? I do. I remember thinking about the ease of use and the TV like picture quality that we can get from our webcam.~

Waking up and seeing video footage from NASA TV and the like I soon realized that a webcam was not really going to be the quality that I had hoped for. I thought that getting Broadband internet would solve the problem, and the oodles of bandwidth would allow me to send and receive good quality live video. So when I got the Broadband last September, a webcam soon went first place on my wish list.

I would have bought one, if I had loads of money to buy one. The problem was that I didn?t. Who has eh? So like most people, I had a low budget. By this time Christmas was well on its way, so when Argos had a buy on get one free deal on the Quickcam express how could I turn it down? I could give the free one to my dad and I could chat with my family over the net for less money than the cost of a phone call.

So I bought it. Them, whatever. The USB connection Sounded like it would prove easy connection. It was. I am running Windows XP Home, and without the installation CD, Windows was showing me looking at, erm, me. After getting over the initial shock of seeing myself (I?m sure I?m not that ugly really?!?!) I thought a good idea would be to install the provided software. After that was done, I had a little play around with the photo / video etc software. I made a 5 minute video consisting of myself going cross eyed (well you have to don?t you?) I thought very highly of the camera. The picture quality was as I had expected for a camera of this price, and for all general purposes would do me just fine.

The next major test would be to see how it did performed with my broadband internet. I had yahoo messenger installed, so that was my first port of call. All I can say is how
impressed I was with the way it just worked. I was broadcasting my ugly mug over the net on my first attempt. Yahoo has a thing called ?super mode? which allows you to broadcast lots of video detail. The quality that yahoo sent certainly was good enough for me, and probably would be adequate for most users.

I then tried using MSN Messenger to do the same thing. Ha, what a laugh that was. I could get it to work then, and I cant get it to work now. To be honest, I know nobody that has their webcam working on MSN. (Let me know if you have!) So I continue to use yahoo, despite the lack of contacts compared to my MSN.

Lots of people here at dooyoo have slated the quality of this cam, but its only a webcam. Its not designed for dvd quality home movies. Broadcasting over the internet, many more expensive cams can?t show any better quality, especially if you are on 56k.


Video quality out of the way, And the zero audio providing a rubbish read, the next main issue is the physical layout of the camera. You know the shape. A cute ball sat atop a triangular base. Looks simple enough, but trying to position the cam so that your face is in the center can be quite tricky. The vertical adjustment can be a pain, as you need two hands, one on the ball part, the other on the base. Once positioned, the camera is very likely to move again afterwards. This is due to the weight and stiffness of the lead. I have solved the problem by blue tacking a bulldog clip to the back of my monitor, clipping the cable in a position, which allows the best movement of the camera. You might find this sounds a bit annoying, and it you?d be right. It is!

The focus is done by turning the bezel on the front. I set the focus when I first got the cam. I haven?t needed to since. The focus range its at now is fairly broad, so I can half the distance between me and the camera, and the focus is still good.

The colour does sometimes go a little wacky when you turn
on a light in the room, but it auto adjusts. It takes a bit of time, but it doesn?t really ruin the webcam experience.

So there you have it. That?s what I think of the camera. Read some more reviews, then make your choice. Just make sure you tidy your room before you show it to the world!!!

Hope you enjoyed my review, thanks for taking the time to read it.