When I think of webcams it reminds me of Nadia in American Pie................. AwOOooooooOO00000000OOOoooh ! (Gimme a Howler boyz !!!!)
What do you give your 16 year old cousin for her birthday?
Digital camera........ too expensive.....
I thought and thought and thunked.... and remembered she was so excited to have used my Logitech webcam for the first time, it was her first ever experience video conferencing.
So I went to look for a Webcam for her, seemed like a perfect gift and it would be under $ 30 too.
I went to the store and saw,
Creative... no I like the speakers only.
Touchmate....... ugh... I hate this brand...
Logitech... nothing new from them....
Some Chinese and Korean webcams for $12 - $15..... cheap but what clarity would the images be?
Search... search search.... Genius.... hmm... i’ve known this brand to be shelling out Scanners but a webcam.... turn the box around and read the specs.... Wow Impressive.
1.3 megapixel digital camera- Webcam 352 x 288 pixels- and small Videos too (AVI) impressive.
Give someone a Webcam and a digital camera, 1.3 megapixels amazing... and it has a flash too... most of the low range Chinese products in this range don’t come with a flash.... i’ll go for this and it costs $ 68 !
Asked about the warranty at the counter and they replied ’’One year warranty’’.... superb....
So I took it home and tested it, I had to. Knowing how techie my cousin is, it would return to me. I hate to read manuals, prefer to test everything on my own.
But when I did take a peek at the manual, everything was in Black and white and the text was so so small I wish they’d provided a maginfying glass too. Some illustrations and pictures are there but it gives no details of the softwares usage.
Size: Exact size of my Credit Card, edge to edge.
Weight: Barely nuthin’ Colour:
My favourite Metallic silver.
On my Laptop it loaded onto XP smoothly, had some glitches on my cousin’s PC than operates on Windows 98, but it runs perfectly now.
It came with a small leather (fake) cover to carry. The plastic body of this looks too fragile, if it fell, I think that’s the end.
Digital camera
The resolution of the images can go upto 1280 x 1024 in pixels.
The images in a well lit room as pretty good but not 1.3 mp quality honestly.
If you are using the flash, it’s not too bright but useful for its price range.
Built in memory is 16MB, which is useful for a small compact beginners camera. Another function this little wonder has is a Self-timer! Not a bad deal eh?
Webcam
My Logitech enhances the picture automatically by increasing the brightness, the Genius doesn’t do that (why call it Genius 1.3 M Smart?)
Frames per second: VGA (20 fps); CIF (30FPS).
Pretty stable picture while you move the camera around.
Video
The Camera’s operating software can convert AVI into MPEG (Which you may burn as VCD format too.
While the cameras connected to your Pc you may record continuously coz it records onto your PC not using the internal 16 MB memory.
Files were pretty massive, when we recorded a video of 3 minutes it went upto 28 MB... wowzers... need the Gmail 1000 mb accounts when someone starts emailing this stuff.
The Software lets you record Video mails too- no voice... sorry !
Software
Photolmpression- Interesting. You can create calenders, frames, edges and Fun pictures too.
I’ve always made funny pics of my cousin, and now she gets back at me, yesterday she put my head on a kid in diapers ! Revenge is sweet huh ?
Remind me not to teach her Photoshop !
The rest of the software I didn’t use, just what I needed to download the pixx onto the PC.
I’ve tried Video impression before
Photo editing software
ArcSoft VideoImpression
Video editing software ArcSoft Funhouse
Fun imaging ArcSoft PhotoBase
Multimedia file management software
Monitoring
The driver software had an interesting function, Security monitoring. You can set the time on the software and it monitors the room for that particular time only.
Can come in handy sometime..... (Nadia !)
LCD
Black and white, just shows no. of pixx and icons to delete, self timer, flash.
Really tiny. Two buttons only.
Cons
No Zoom
No Mic- would have helped for video mails
No stand/ base.
It has one of those tripod screws under it, but no stand.
LCD too small.
No titling, my Logitech allows it.
No memory media can be added.
Overall
It’s a pretty useful camera for beginners and exceeds some functions for its price range. I think in this price range it’s impossible to get something in 1.3 megapixels with a flash and a digital camera as well as a video camera too.
Great All-in-one product. Perfect as a gift too.
Specifications
1.3 Mega pixel optical resolution
Resolution: 1280 x 1024, 640 x 480, 352 x 288 (CIF), 352 x 240 pixels PC-Cam: VGA (20 fps);CIF (30FPS)
Auto flash 10 second Self-Timer
Built-in 16MB Flash memory
Uses 2 x AAA batteries
USB 1.1
I wondered what the DSC stands for coz I’ve been seeing this on almost all models and I used to think its a model name only, but it stands for: Digital Still Camera... wow learned sumthin’ new today !
I wish I’d get a job in one of the Hardware/ Computers/ Electronic Review magazines where I’d would just test new products.... wicked !