Customer Reviews

IBM 33L4889 Video Conferencing PC Camera (USB)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

The camera itself works quite well with focus up to one foot from the object. The software that comes with unit is lacking. Even Microsoft's NetMeeting is more feature rich than what comes bundled. USB bandwidth is acceptable unless you use other high bandwidth devices like scanners or media drives during live video. Plan on scaling your frames and rate down if are multitasking. The hardware installed on all flavors of Microsoft Windows 95 and 98 and also worked on beta versions of upcoming Microsoft operating systems. You will not find this product on IBM's site, it is OEMed from another vendor. The same essential camera was offered to new subscribers of Earthlink but was the serial port version. This one suffered due to serial port bandwidth limitations.

The camera is OK at best due to poor software. The manufacturer is Xirlink which is an awful company to deal with. Support is poor.

Whatever you do, do not purchase this camera and think that you will receive a rebate. They will not honor it. The rebates are handled by an even worse company, Insight.

Don't buy it!

I did get this camera (the writer preceding this review is in error on one part), the USB version as an inducement to subscribe to Earthlink for a short period of time with a penalty for early termination. With the junk camera I received, I'd like to see them "enforce" a penalty! Biggest problem is that it's focus will not improve as well as the lighting problem and both of these problems are mentioned in other reviews. I have a couple of other cameras that are less to purchase if price is a consideration but both are substantially better cameras. My favorite is the QuickCam although mine is the parallel port version that creates a problem for me only because I can't keep my printer and camera connected to my PC at the same time. Hence, the other two are USB with converters to switch them to the serial port if I should desire. I bought my son the Logitech camera (USB). Software program for the Logitech is great also. The IBM installation software gave me a migraine at first but I finally got the thing installed and it works but the picture is really poor quality and no way to fix it.

I have had nothing but problems with this camera. The manual focus doesn't add focus to anything, and it is difficult to get the light exactly right for the camera to work well. The program even caused my computer to crash due to major incompatibility problems. Xirlink Tech Support was of no help whatsoever - they don't even answer their phone (you have to call long distance and leave a message).

This camera is terrible. The manual focus does not work at all. Under normal light, the picture quality is acceptable, but really poor under low light. The software included is extremely poor, and the technical support from Xirlink (the maker of the camera) is worse. I tried using the camera on both Win98 and Mac, the Win98 driver works but I had to download a 3rd-party software for the capturing to work. On the Mac side, the driver provided is from 1996(!) - what a joke.

For the money, you're better off getting the Logitech or the Kensington for a little more. This camera will only give you big headaches.

I plugged the IBM camera into my USB port and installed the software, and...I could not get an image to appear on the screen. After a couple of hours of trouble-shooting I discovered that this camera is not compatible with all USB ports, so you have to use a different driver which doesn't work as well. Choppy, low-quality video. I strongly discourage anyone from buying this product. FYI, this is not an IBM designed/produced product - they simply put their logo on a no name brand which they clearly should have researched more.

To put it bluntly: This camera is awful. I immediatly returned it after buying it. When I tested it, I waved my hands in front of the thing. Ten seconds later, a 1 fps blur appeared on my screen. I bought a logitech camera for a few dollars less, and it works wonderfully.

I purchased this camera because it was from IBM...my experience with IBM equipment has been, until this point, very good. They make quality items (this camera notwithstanding).

The camera software installed easily in win2k, albeit none of the autorun stuff worked and I had to manually check device manager to make sure the camera had been installed. So this was not really a problem.

The problem is the very poor video quality and the very poor controls: there is little a user can do to improve image quality.

*extremely slow frame rate
*very poor color balance and control
*focuses poorly
*EXTREMELY poor lighting control (either grossly over or under exposes images).

There's a reason this thing is selling for half-price!

when it's the cheap there bound to be something wrong. and there was. this is not a web cam. meaning you can't hook it up to a web page and broadcast it. it's for video conferencing one on one (netmetting). the pictures were just horrible. you see more of the nasty diffuse then you could see yourself. ...

suggestion: i would purchase the intel pocket pc camera. this cam has clear pics. and is a webcam & digital cam.

On the plus side, this camera was really easy to install. Andthe software looked very easy to use. And it is one of the cheapestpc cameras on the market. But why bother to buy it if all you can seeis a big blur --even in decent lighting? And why has IBM even putsomething so useless out on the market?

If you look on the back ofthe box, you'll see a sample of the software with really sharppictures. Don't be fooled, those sharp bright pictures were not evercreated with this camera! If they showed a truely realisticdemonstration of this camera on the back of the package, you would seedark, grey, blurry images.

If you want a pc camera spend a littlemore if you have to, but get something that actually works. Don't buythis.