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Macally Portable Goose Neck USB Video Web Cam - ICECAM

See it at Amazon.com for $21.88

Average Customer Rating
(3.0 out of 5)

Amazon Customer Reviews

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105 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
(4 out of 5)

Good for what it does, just don't expect miracles.

Mar 7, 2005 - By Steven A. Godun (North Brunswick, NJ)

I bought one of these for my mother to use with iChat AV and Mac OS X 10.3. With the addition of Ecamm's "iChatUSBCam" software (not included) it does work quite nicely, given the limitations of this USB camera and assuming you don't go into full screen mode. Physically, the camera is hardly imposing at all. The actual camera itself is slightly smaller than, say, a Bic lighter. The cable to connect it to your computer is strengthened; you bend the wire like a coat hanger to position the camera. The good thing is this makes the camera infinitely positionable. The bad thing is if you want to use this as a desk camera you'll find even the slightest vibration makes the camera wobble. I've found that if you wrap the wire around a solid object like a desk support, the camera becomes significantly more stable. Of course, this camera is really intended for travel use which makes all of this pretty well moot. IMAGE QUALITY: Image quality is decent for a USB camera but it won't win any awards. It does NOT like shadows or dimly lit areas; artifacting becomes a problem when lighting goes down. Given proper lighting conditions it produces an acceptable image. The ring around the lens allows you to focus it, but since the aperature is so tiny those with large hands may find it difficult to adjust. Macally has VERY good customer support and has historically been very Macintosh friendly. BOTTOM LINE: If you're looking for a cheap (Mac-friendly) webcam and you're not terribly concerned about premium image quality, this is a good way to go.

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
(4 out of 5)

Best Option for OS X 10.4

Oct 26, 2005 - By Aaron Post (Tulsa, OK)

You only have two choices if you're running OS X 10.4. You can get the Isight for $150.00 or you can get the Macally Icecam for about $30.00.

The Macally gets the job done with just a few drawbacks. 1) You have to buy a driver online for which there comes a coupon when you buy the camera. 2.) The USB cable is only about 15in. long.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
(3 out of 5)

It works with Mac OS 10.4.6

Apr 15, 2006 - By MR. CHICAGO

It works with OS10.4.6 without buying anything else, although you need install an attached driver in your computer. To the best of my knowledge, this is the most reasonable webcam for Mac users. The design of the webcam and the image quality are not that great, but I find it satisfactory to show your family/friends how well you look.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
(4 out of 5)

Safe Bet

Oct 13, 2005 - By E. Keiper

I am satisfied with my purchase of the macally icecam and I can confidently recommend this product for the price. It is VERY EASY to set up and use and it works well; However, I took off 1 star for the following 2 reasons: 1. Room lighting plays with the focus and the focus needs very delicate fine tuning - but it has a great picture once you finally get it in focus and get the room lighting right. 2. A separate software (purchase, but only $5.00 w/coupon) needed for Ichat.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
(4 out of 5)

Great for the price!

Oct 24, 2005 - By Rob (Cleveland, OH)

I use this with Yahoo Messenger and my Powerbook. The video quality is far from perfect, and its a little annoying that you have to buy extra software to use the camera with iChat, but I don't really need to do professional video conferencing or anything like that, so it gets the job done for me.

Bottom line... for the price it works pretty well.