A Camera to Smile for!
Written: May 29 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: compact, USB, easy to use, good image
Cons: that irritating grey screen
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| AsaR's Full Review: 3Com HomeConnect PC Digital Camera |
When 3Com finally released a digital pc camera we all wondered how it would fare. Well after having used a few of these things (from decent brands to some questionable ones) i'd have to say that its a thumbs up with this one. That is, as long as you don't take it too seriously.
With a frame rates of 60 fps at 160x120 pixels and even more with software enhancement of up to 1280x960 you might think that this is some serious device. Well it does well as long as you have a serious machine to plug it on. Otherwise you will experience a jerky scrolling motion which gets worst as you move into higher resolutions (lower frame rates). So to be on the safe side, stick with a mid range resolution of say 320x240 up to about 640x480. Try even on black and white if color is not an issue.
The image is good, clear and crisp with not much ghosting noticeable. And i even tried a little zoom experiment using a small telescope. The results was unexpected as the picture quality was retained with only a few blurs occuring.
It comes with some decent software as well which does most of the necessary jobs like mirroring the image, turn to black and white, record, snap shot, send by email, turn led light off, etc. One software i tried this with is "Gotcha", which is a security monitoring software which detects movements and activates the record on camera and turns back on standby when movement cease. And it worked perfectly!
One little problem with this device is when you try and switch from one software to another. This seems to cause some problems with its USB connection which produces a grey screen and stops the camera from showing and display. Although the solution is pretty simple. You just simply unplug its USB connection, wait ten seconds, and plug it back in and it starts working again. This can be annoying at times but i think is liveable.
All in all i think that 3Com has made a good start with this little personal gadget. And that's how you should look at it, as a personal digital camera for pc. And you probably wont be disappointed.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
AsaR
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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