Home > Consumer Reviews > Labtec WebCam - USB (961206-0403)

I usually don't reveiw products but I felt badly that the Labtec Webcam was getting such a bad rap. In fairness, the negative points first:
-yes, you do practically have to weight it down as it's so light that it doesnt seem to want to aim where you want it to without a fight (the manual focus is tedious at best).
-Labtec's technical support is absolutely dreadful, I had better luck trying everything on my own. (Took me about a half an hour to get it to run properly)
-The picture quality is average at best, I only use mine for netmeeting, I wouldnt recommend hoping to take any print quality photos with it.
That being said, it's a fifteen dollar webcam, and as long as you only plan on using it for visual communication online or meduim quality photo/video, it's an amazing bargin. If you want high quality and are willing to shell out over a hundred dollars, more power to you. I, however, am quite satisfied with the functional and economical version. I've been running mine for months and haven't had a problem yet, I'm completely satisfied.

I never could get the thing to work properly, and I don't believe that a Hollywood lighting crew would have helped. The hardware is fairly simple, maybe too simple. Focus adjustment is manual and tedious. The camera sits on a tiny base, and it's so light that you'll need to weight down the power cord to get the thing to stay put. The software has a dozen options for color, brightness, gain, and if you can figure it out, you're smarter than the people who wrote the directions. The major deal breaker was that I couldn't get Windows 98 to load if the camera was plugged in. I don't know what caused that, but every time I shut down the computer, I had to remember to pull the USB cord out, and you know what a pain that can be. I bought this camera because of the price, and I guess I've proven to myself, once again, that you get what you pay for.....

This camera is very nice. Quality is not the best but keeps you working if you need only to have video chat with your friends or record low quality video. It was easy to install and run on XP almost without effort. The only annoying problem for me is its awkward positioning. In order to set it up in a certain place, you need a lot of effort. The camera is so light while the connecting USB cable is thick, heavy and inflexible, which means most of the time it will take the camera and fall or change direction to the direction of the cable. While still you can position it with some effort, or clamp it somehow you've got to be careful because the cable is so unmerciful. Also the movement in the vertical direction is not very flexible.
All in all. Very nice camera, easy to install, low cost, and average quality, if you can take the effort of positioning it. If you don't make a lot of movement, you can set it up once, and leave it there.

i've used this a little on the mac... quality wise, it isn't that great. I get better quality on the camera on my cell phone. i can't get more than five frames a second, even though the box says 30. the web cam is really lite, so i'm gonna secure it with string... or tape soon... if you need a webcam and are hurting on money, i recomend this item. but if you have the money, get a firewire camera... or something usb2.0

I have Windows 98 ME and my Labtec works great; it captures still images which I send to friends & family (not necessarily in that order). Full video allows you to conduct meetings on line. The feature I really like in this little gem is the manual focus lens. Sure you can get a better webcam for more money; but this does a great job for the money spent. Here is how I rate products

1. Quality of product
2. features
3. ease of use
4. Value

Features Include:

* 352x288 at 30 FPS maximum resolution
* USB computer interface
* Manual focus lens
* CCD Format: CMOS Sensor
* Easy to capture still Images


Includes

* Webcam, Software CD, USB