Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000 WebCam

Trust me, you don't want to waste your money on a cheap webcam. The price for this item might seem a little expensive for a webcam, but you get what you pay for: it's much better quality, design, smooth video, and extra features.

The Quickcam Fusion uses a CMOS sensor, whereas the Quickcam Pro 5000 uses CCD. Fusion does use a higher CMOS sensor compared to low-end webcams, BUT low quality webcams also still use CMOS technology. Most will argue CCD as being better than CMOS. Granted, the results also show (read on further).

- The Quickcam Fusion can tilt 90 degrees back, but it can't tilt forward AND it CANNOT swivel from side to side.
- The Quickcam Pro 5000 can tilt 45 degrees up, about 10 degrees down, AND 360 degrees to the sides. The Quickcam Pro 5000 wins in terms of mobility.

The rubber tail is much more flexible on the Quickcam Pro 5000. You can straighten the tail to lay flat on a desk or on top of a CRT monitor; or bend to put it on your... Read more

I've used this webcam with 3 different people so far, and they all report good image quality. One person said that, when the video is viewed full screen, the picture quality is almost as good as a standard definition TV. From my perspective, I could only judge the picture quality of the other parties, and they were pretty poor, probably because they used cheap webcams that were a few years old.

I have used 2 different instant messaging software, MSN and Skype 2.0 beta. While the picture qualities were similar, Skype had significantly better frame rate, and hence motion was not as jerky. However, neither system even came close to 30 frames/sec.

One tip I have is that if your room is dark or you have strong backlighting, you should switch on the low light setting in the software.

I've tried several different webcams, and the Logitech 5000 by far has the best image. Its especially good under low light conditions, where the other cameras I tried didn't work very well. I use the 5000 regularly for videoconferencing via Skype, and it works very well with this service.

The software, however, is downright awful. When trying to set the audio, for instance, the whole system will freeze up completely. I couldn't kill the process at all, and I couldn't even reboot - I had to physically hit the power switch on the computer to restart it. As a programmer, I can tell you that it takes some pretty bad coding to completely lock up a system like that. As a workaround, I had to change the settings on my microphone manually in windows Control Panel and then never ever touch the Logitech camera settings program.

In scanning the web, I've noticed that many other users have had similar problems with their Logitech software. Its a shame that Logitech would... Read more