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Creative Live! Cam Optia webcam

£39 inc VAT

Manufacturer: Creative

Our Rating: We rate this 3.5 out of 5

By | 20 June 07

The Creative Live! Cam Optia may lie at the cheaper end of Creative's Live! Cam line-up, but we were pleasantly surprised by its performance.

The Creative Live! Cam Optia may lie at the cheaper end of Creative's Live! Cam line-up, but we were pleasantly surprised by its performance.

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Creative Live! Cam Optia is a budget webcam that provides relatively impressive image quality, smart face tracking, a useful software bundle and excellent plug-and-play functionality.

Indeed, the Creative Live! Cam Optia adheres to the UVC (USB video class) specification, which means it can be used by any UVC-supported OS - without drivers.

We liked the overall build quality of the Creative Live! Cam Optia. The combination of a manual focus ring and Auto Tuning technology, plus up to 270 degrees of vertical swivel and 15 degrees horizontal tilt, allows the Optia's 1.3Mp precision lens to capture half-decent images. And while the Creative Live! Cam Optia might look like a stapler, with its thick, acrylic casing and its 'multi-attach' base, it's a classy stapler that'll fit almost any display.

But the Creative Live! Cam Optia remains a budget model, and 1.3Mp is pretty standard; 1,280x960 still images are achieved through software interpolation, and face tracking is erratic. There's no built-in mic – Creative has bundled a handsfree stereo headset – and we weren't impressed with autoProducer's Advanced Video FX.

That said, video quality is pretty smooth at 30fps (frames per second).

Creative Live! Cam Optia Expert Verdict »
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1.3Mp camera (1,280x960 software enhanced)
640x480 video at 30fps
smart face tracking
manual focus
software included: Creative Live! Cam Center, Creative Live! Cam Manager, Creative Live! Cam Console, Creative Photo Manager, Creative Photo Calendar
SightSpeed and muvee autoProducer
compatible with Skype, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Messenger
handsfree stereo headset supplied
System requirements: 1.6GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor or equivalent
Windows XP SP2/ XP 64bit
256MB RAM
500MB hard disk space
CD-ROM drive
USB 1.1/2.0
  • Build Quality: We give this item 7 of 10 for build quality
  • Features: We give this item 7 of 10 for features
  • Value for Money: We give this item 7 of 10 for value for money
  • Overall: We give this item 7 of 10 overall

For a budget webcam, the Creative Live! Cam Optia is a clever performer. Unfortunately, its style is weakened by the lack of a mic, and video suffers at anything less than 640x480 (which affects Skype and IM). Plus we're never keen on devices that rely on a hardwired USB cable for life support.

There are currently no price comparisons for this product.
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