Logitech QuickCam Notebook Deluxe,
May 1, 2005, $59.99
Surprise, surprise, a new, really good camera. I'm very pleased with the image quality. The drivers work well and the picture is really great. Superb performance under general room lighting both with back lighting and without. Logitech has included a white balance slider in the controls,  as well as a hue slider which makes all the difference in color balance, especially with my unusual colored walls. The low light sensitivity is excellent and even better than the Webcam Pro 4000. With a full 640x480 image sensor.
I brought the camera with me for the 4th of July weekend and pointed it out my trailer window. I find that the auto mode has a lot of trouble dealing with full sunlight. And when I try to go with manual exposure, I get either total darkness or total white-out. It would appear that the camera can't deal with full sunlight very well. As long as you are dealing with normal indoor lighting the camera performs very well.
I am surprised at the fact it is only a USB 1 camera. Very unexpected for a brand new version. However, they apparently have done a good job of making the data stream very efficient. The camera appears to keep up with 15 frames a second at 640x480 resolution.
My only complaint on this camera is the mounting bracket. It won't fit on my notebook. For some reason all the current models of notebook cameras, (except for the earlier Logitech notebook camera) seem to think all notebook screens are under 1/2 inch thick and square. The amount of vertical space for grabbing the top of the screen is only 3/8 of an inch on this camera. I can force these cameras onto the screen, but after a few minutes they lean over toward the front and fall off. I guess I will have to come up with some type of adaptor to use them.
Product Specifications:
- Sensor: High quality VGA CMOS
- Video capture: Maximum of 640x480 (VGA)
- Still Image Capture: 1.3 mexapixels (interpolated)
- Frame Rate: Up to 15 frames per second
- Color depth: 24-Bit True Color
- Manual focus lens
- built-in microphone
- Travel case
- Clip for notebook displays 5-14mm in width, adapter for thin display panels
- Software:
- Live video calls with free trial of Logitech VideoCall for broadband
- Live video integrated with MSN® Messenger
- Intelligent Face Tracking
- Works with Yahoo!® Messenger
- Includes Logitech QuickCam software for capturing stills and videos
Minimum System Requirements (PC)
- Windows® 2000, Windows® XP
- Pentium® P4 1.4 GHz or AMD Athlon® processor 1 GHz (Pentium® P4 2.4 GHz or better recommended*)
- 128MB RAM (256MB RAM recommended*)
- 200 MB free hard drive space
- Available 1.1 or 2.0 USB port (USB 2.0 High Speed port required for megapixel image capture*)
- CD-ROM drive
- 16-bit color display adapter
- Windows®-compatible sound card and speakers (full duplex sound card recommended)
Screen shots of camera configuration settings
Advanced
Source Settings
Pluses
- Very good image quality
- Small, very portable
- Slider controls for color and hue
- Very good images under very low light conditions
Minuses
- Limited to notebook screens 1/2 inch thick
- USB 1
- Mounting bracket not tall enough, won't grab back side of my notebook screen (3/8 inch)
- Can't handle full daylight
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