Not just fun, but video chatting or conferencing for business professionals is now real. With net connection speeds improving by the day and service provider choices increasing, you could conduct meetings right from your home. Apart from a good machine and a net connection, you would then require a webcam. And there are many available here, ranging from fuzzy free hand-outs thrown in by your hardware vendor to really expensive fancy pieces.
In case you take your video chat seriously and go beyond the hand-me-downs, the Logitech Ultra Vision at Rs 10,995 could be a serious contender for the space on top of your monitor. First off, the cylindrical piece looks good atop the PC, not ugly like some spherical gnomes in the market. Also the fact that Logitech is a known brand with a sound track record of bringing out dependable products is also a plus.
One clear advantage Ultra Vision webcam has is the picture quality. With a 1.3MP camera and the Red Light technology, the picture quality is exceptional amongst webcams. Obviously, the first thing that a webcam should have is a good camera, and the Ultra Vision has one. On this parameter, it scores well. Features like Red Light allow the camera to take pictures even when light is not adequate. This compares well with most of the webcams in the marketplace. Not to mention that the camera gets better results for still pictures.
It also has ?face tracking? features where the camera automatically zooms in on your face. Though this is nothing special, many other pieces also have this, the Ultra Vision has a steady tracker, says a vendor based in Mumbai. Anyway, the face tracker is one feature that can get irritating and hence working on the manual focus from the software is rather advisable, unless you are extremely fidgety while on the PC. In fact, the software for the webcam, an improvement from previous versions, is user friendly and well designed. Even your kid will be able to navigate easily. And then there are these funny features that allow you to add effects to your videos.
The downside is that the webcam sits well on a PC and is rather rickety on a notebook. Also, the voice quality is not all that great. I have heard some hardcore video chatters mention that the frame rate on the video drops considerably when the in built microphone is switched on. It has also been accused of being a processing speed hogger. You could be better off using a separate microphone and use the webcam for video and pictures say some. And if you are a Mac user, the support is minimal.
In sum, if your priority is a webcam with an ability to take crisp pictures and video, the Ultra Vision measures up.