Microsoft LifeCam HD-6000 720p HD Webcam for Notebooks - Black

I should start by saying that I searched for a webcam for a long time. There are a maddening amounts of options out there so it was really hard to pick one. As soon I saw this Microsoft webcam I fell in love with the design but the reviews made me doubt quite a bit. I read reviews everywhere on the Internet and watched others on YouTube until I finally decided to go for it. It came in pretty quickly and I absolutely love it. Since I spent so much time reviewing this camera to see if it was a good choice, I am going to try to sum up in this review the things that I was looking for and which took me hours of reviewing to find:1. This webcam is catalogued as a "notebook" webcam. I was very confused by this since I also wanted to use it with my desktop PC. The two reasons why it is catalogued as such is because the grip is somewhat small compared to other webcams; however, if you have a flat screen monitor that is around 2 inches wide, it should fit. The other reason and the most important one is that the USB cable is very short, just so it can reach the USB port of a laptop, not the CPU of a desktop. So unless you have your CPU really close to your monitor or a monitor with USB ports, you might want to get a USB extension for this one.2. The devilish "auto-focus" issue. This is the critique that was made about this webcam pretty much everywhere I looked. And yes, it is indeed a big issue but luckily with a simple solution. From what I read, people were very upset that the only way to disable auto-focus was by disabling the "true color" feature first and others could not even find a way of disabling it. Well, after I used the camera for a little bit and verified the auto-focus problem, it took me about 10 seconds to disable it by itself, no other features were affected. Apparently Microsoft released a recent driver for the software (which was automatically installed with the CD) which allows you to just go to Properties and uncheck the Automatic Auto-focus option and voilá! Problem solved. The only drawback to this is that if you are trying to show something that is very close to the webcam, say you want to show the text of a book, it will not auto-focus and it will be very blurry, but then again you can manually adjust the clarity settings so that the text clear will be clearer. The secret is to disable the Automatic auto-focus feature. No big deal.3. The microphone is pretty nice. Don't expect a high fidelity sound but it does a good job and the noise reduction feature does make a difference.4. As for the software, it is very basic but practical. You get many color and shape effects with the added feature that they follow your face instead of staying in the middle and you having to adjust to the effects. It also allows to take pictures, record audio and video at different resolutions all the way up to 720p HD. The only feature that I would have liked to see is a timer for the photographs since sometimes I might want to take a picture of me from a distance.5. It is a very small camera, way smaller that I thought it was going to be, which is nice. The 360° feature works pretty well also, it turns very easily and smoothly. It also comes with a nice pouch the size of a regular wallet and which can fit the webcam and the USB cable perfectly fine.Overall it is an awesome webcam and not too expensive. While there were other webcams around the same price and with better reviews, the design and the 360° features of this one just got me hooked. It is indeed a very nice looking webcam, easy and safe to transport in the pouch and with a good performance for the casual user like me. I am very happy with it.

Used it on TV and the picture of caller was good

This is the most compact USB Web camera I can find. It's almost completely black and with a few tweaks you can make it totally black. If they could make this 1/4 the size then it would be more easily concealed. I would choose miniaturization over higher definition for the next generation model while keeping the same features.One important upgrade over my old 640 x 480 Web camera besides the higher resolution is you can really tell the picture is sharper even at the same resolution. The next bonus is the low light at night is better which makes it easier to see intruders in dark areas. However, when compared to the LifeCam Studio, the Studio has the best low light clarity. I have yet to compare it to the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920. But due to the extreme width it is harder to conceal and thus passed up as a potential security camera. However, it might be a great web camera for Youtube videos since it has a better Field of View than the LifeCam Studio. If I get a chance to buy the C920, I will do a low level light night comparison between these 3 web cameras.Cons:It doesn't really do 720P @ 30fps.It can attain a maximum resolution video capture of 1280 x 800 @ 10 fps.1280 x 720 @ 10 fps960 x 544 @ 15 fps800 x 600 @ 15 fps800 x 448 @ 20 fps640 x 480 @ 30 fpsIf this thing could do 1280 x 800 @ 30 fps I would be happy.800 x 600 @ 60 fps would be nice as well if it could be done.Auto Focus - Huge problem. When cars or lights are aimed or in the vicinity of the viewing area it will try and adjust focus which causes a 2-3 seconds delay while it tries to refocus back on its original setting where it was once sharp.During Auto Focusing - If recording audio it will create a strange stuttering sound effect. I think it is caused by the Auto Focusing motor inside.Sometimes Auto Focus will refocus incorrectly and stay on a blurred image which you then have to disconnect it from the USB port and reconnect and it will refocus correctly.The LifeCam software requires you to connect to the internet to download the newest version.I think they should release a basic program that does not require the internet to install.It should just do the basic adjustments of Auto Focus - Enable / Disable, Manual Focus Distance setting, and if necessary color adjustments.Personally, Microsoft should just release a small file that installs and only Disables Auto Focus permanently each time the Operating System boots or as a background application and that would fix most user's problems with this web camera.Another way to go about it is have a firmware to flash the camera so you can customize your own settings to the camera permanently as preset defaults.For myself, it would be Auto Focus Disabled, and whatever value I would optimize for the focus distance.I am pretty sure they can do either one, but I would prefer a firmware program that allows you to burn in your customized preset settings so you don't have to install the LifeCam software on each computer you use.I plug this camera into different laptops and if this software is not installed I am stuck with the annoying Auto Focus issue again.One other issue I noticed with Auto Focus is during a certain lighting condition, the image will appear to flicker like it's brighter and then dimmer constantly flipping between the two. My belief is the Auto Focus is doing some Micro focus tweaking which is causing this to occur. I haven't installed the LifeCam software to disable the Auto Focus on this computer to verify if this fixes this flickering lighting issue.I would prefer a simple program that can be installed and auto loads at boot to disable the Auto Focus but a permanent customizable firmware updater would actually be the optimal solution so that you don't have to deal with installing the LifeCam software on every computer.

Hi Web-Grammie here: My daughter told me about this web cam that was on Amazon.com about 3weeks ago. I couldn't find it cheaper anywhere. I Had never ordered from Amazon before so I didn't know what to expect. I was very pleasently suprised at how easy and fast it was to order. Received this WEB-CAM in three days. I am very happy with this product. It allows me to keep in visual touch with my grandchildren (7) all under 6years of age. We all know how fast they can grow. The picture and sound are great. It was very easy to install because I'am not very experienced with all this new technology. Thanks Amazon WEB-Grammie