Home > Consumer Reviews > Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000 (Blue)

Already had a webcam from logitech notebook pro, which I purchased for around $40.00. Got this Lifecam VX5000 for my parent's for $18.99 (free shipping). The Lifecam is so much better than the expensive one. It adjusts to low light or bright light conditions within seconds. And a cool feature is the software that comes with Lifecam, which allows for funny skewing of the captured image using face recognition - like large eyes, small eyes, large nose, alien head, super-imposed masks, etc. And all that without compromising the chat quality. It was fun chatting with my nephews. Very satisfied. Definitely recommended. Will purchase another one to replace my existing logitech notebook pro.

I just received this yesterday and tested it right away (well, almost right away, after downloding and installing it to my laptop for 20~30 minutes) I thought because of the reviews, I thought the picture quality would be very grainy and blurred but it's not. It's not HD or even your 8~10 megapixel camera quality but it's pretty clear enough for me. It will be mainly used for video conference with family. It's definitely worth what I paid for and glad that I got this and would recomment to friends and family who want something practical.

I installed this on a Windows Vista 64 bit computer and it worked without any problems. I already have a camera on my computer but I didn't realize how bad it was until I used the Microsoft one. The quality is excellent and you can use it for video/audio/photo capture. You also have the option for real-time special effects so you can add snow, rain, a picture of dog etc. onto the capture. This makes it a lot of fun and good for making family videos.

The LifeCam software included with the camera is easy to use. When it starts up, it looks like a TV monitor and you have the video/audio/photo capture buttons at the bottom. You press the one you want to capture. Once you've done then it gives you the option to look at (or listen to) what you captured - it couldn't be more simple! You also have the option to integrate it with Live Windows Messenger etc. if you want to do video conferencing etc.

As always with this kind of hardware/software, it has it's limitations but I thought it worked well enough. The only slightly annoying problem is the camera not being able to track any movement efficiently but this is normal for this level of camera. The camera itself is well made, lightweight and neat looking.

Last word is that there are better quality cameras out there (even by Microsoft) but this one is great value for the quality level you get.

We're using ours as a baby-cam, and the low light performance is much better than any others we tried!

I would like to say before I attempt to tell you my thoughts on this Webcam that I have never used one before, and I do not find that I should use it in the near future. It is, however, a very engaging little device. For what I thought it was and what it did, it did great but with a quip that was quite annoying and that is why I knocked off a star. Here goes for you prospective buyers.

It is a very small box shaped camera about a 2 inch square that has a very adjustable, flexible hook that can shape into just about anything to fit and grip it to anything you should please. The picture quality is as good as I would want it, much like cheap camcorder, and this is without adequate lighting. It looks like many a number of webcam shots around the web, low in the light department, light graininess, and not very sharp. So this is what I was expecting and that is what was delivered. It starts up fast, and overall a very simple easy to use cam. There was one thing, it was less than major but pretty annoying, which I will get too after the very fun Pro's/Con's list!

Pros:
1. inexpensive
2. easy to setup
3. small
4. very easy to use
5. video phone capable

Cons:
Took about an hour to install the program!

This is what I was telling you about. I put in the CD, and it had to download and install for over an hour before I could finish installing the software, which was only a cam program, nothing ostentatious and nothing complex. And this is without installing the Windows Messenger service that it recommended.

All in all it was as good a cam as can be expected from someone not expecting anything. It worked for every purpose that I thought it would be good for (take pictures, video messaging) but it took an hour to install a minimal type program, which was uncalled for. All in all give it a shot even though it makes you work for it.