Customer Reviews

Intel Pro PC Camera

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Well, I searched around a bit, and also took a look at friends cams in their homes and other friends output of their cams online.

The problem with most webcams is that they really are horrible, but since they are very inexpensive, many people get tricked into buyin the cheapest one, I mean, a cam is a cam right? Wrong.

Most cams offer poor lighting features, poor color, lousy picture, and their software is lame at best.

This cam worked immediately out of the box, has great software and within minutes, you can send a link to a friend and they can see you like that!

The software included, gives you the option to turn your PC into a video server, which in these days of broadband, is a great option.

You can also set up a motion detector feature, so that when you are away, if anything moves within the camera range it can do several things with the image. One, it can save the image(s) to disk, or email the picture to a selected email account, or upload it to a web page.

I found all of these options worked well, except the upload part. There was limited documentation on how this worked, but I tried it with a FrontPage website, no luck. Tried it via FTP, no luck. I did manage to get it to upload to an AOL web account (members AOL space) which is fine for my needs. I may have not set it up correctly for the other features, but it was fairly basic: FTP username, pass and location, so I am not sure how I could screw that up.

The camera adapts well to low light, and with a little tweaking, you could probably get a clear picture under candle light :)

I must say, I was very impressed with this product, and it just goes to show, that if you do enough research on your purchase, you have a great chance of being satisfied with it. The reviews for this cam, helped greatly in my final decision to purchase the cam.

A++

This is my second webcam and is a massive improvement on my first (a Logitech). The image quality is excellent and it works well in poor light (which is where most webcams fall down).

Physically, it has a good stand, so that it wont topple, a sliding door to protect the lens when not in use, and a focus dial.

The software bundle is comprehensive, with useful snap shot and video clip software. There is also video conferencing software, which is not worth using as it requires the same software at both ends of the call - surely its simpler to use MS Netmeeting, which anyone with a webcam already has installed.

And there are some webcam games which I havent tried.

My only negative is that the cam is not as manoeverable as the "ball" type that swivel around to all angles

For the money, this is the best cam currently on the market.

Short and sweet... This camera is great, hardware-wise. The image looks good, and the automatic light adjustment works well. Capturing video at 320x240 is smooth.

Installation is true plug and play. This camera is Microsoft WHQL logo'd and drivers are included with Windows ME and XP. No installation of the included software is necessary. If you have Windows 2000 you will need to download drivers from the Intel web site. This is a bad thing for people who actually want to use the included software, as it will not install or work in Window 2000, the downloadable drivers are bare bones. This is not so bad, as the included software is not too hot anyway, and netmeeting and windows movie maker or media encoder work great. Windows media encoder is a free download from Microsoft.

The camera is well priced and beats all the other cameras out there for OS support and quality. Yes, even the Intel Pocket Camera. Pick up this camera for a low price and there is also the rebate which makes it a steal. If you are even slightly considering getting a webcam, go for this one. You will put it to good use if you plan on running Windows XP in the near future, as the built in Windows Messenger software makes it really easy to have video chats with friends or family.

I've only used the camera for a day or two. It works as advertized. However, there are small differences to be aware of before ordering. Intel has made several versions that look the same and have similar names. I mistakenly ordered the "Intel Pro PC Camera" (model CS430) instead of the "Intel Pro Video PC Camera" (model CS431). :-(

The differences are that the 2nd one has newer software and a built-in microphone.

This is my second Intel product and my second run in with their terrible support, which I wouldn't expect from a company like Intel. So I give five stars for the product and zero stars for the support.

The issue here is that this camera didn't come with drivers or software to run on Windows XP. And unlike other consumer product companies that let you download XP drivers, Intel makes you send away for software and PAY (...) for the privilege. Who wants to pay and wait that long when they could just make them available conveniently by download? That is inexcusable and arrogant.

That aside, the camera is a great camera. The best part is that it allows you to attach a VCR and download video onto your PC. I used it to download my wedding video and put clips on my web site. That is a feature most cameras don't have and I applaud Intel for taking the extra step.

ADDENDUM: Since first writing this, Intel has made the drivers available by download and the software available on CD for free. Obviously they were getting a lot of heat. But I can't ignore the fact that their first instinct was so wrong, so I'm still holding it against them and keeping my three star rating.

I got the Intel Pro PC Camera, it was everything I expected. I loaded the CD that came with it, no brainer. Then plugged the Intel Pro PC Camera into a POWERED USB port (at first I plugged it into the spare USB port on my keyboard and it didn't work). And within minutes I was sending video email to my friends. I experienced none of the problems mentioned in some of the other reviews. I am only guessing but the performance of the Intel Pro PC Camera may depend on the quality/power of your PC. My processer, RAM, and video card are top flight. And I use a cable modem, 1M instead of 56K. Anyway, I like it so much I think I will buy each of my remote family members one for next Christmas. I was not expecting Hollywood quality pictures from a [$] web cam, but even so I am really impressed. It delivers a much better picture than I thought possible. Again, keep in mind, I am running a Matrox Millennium G400 AGP video card with 32M of video memory, a NEC monitor, and 256K PC133 RAM running Windows98SE. In experimenting with different PCs, I found that the quality of pictures often has nothing to do with your software but rather hardware like your video card, your monitor, and your RAM.

I originally bought this camera to keep in touch with one of my friends who moved away. Now I am also using it to take digital pictures and chat in video chat rooms. The quality of the pictures is very good, and they print out nicely. The installation was simple and it included free video-conferencing/picture taking software. Overall this one is a great buy and I am very happy with it.

This camera is about as good as you can get for the price. This is the third Intel PC cam that I have purchased, the others were OPCON (operationally controlled) by friends here in Europe who were impressed with it's performance. Not only do you have the option of videoconferencing over the web you can also use it to to make dial up point to point video calls, something that very few, if any PC cams offer. If you take a little time to experiment with this product you can find a thousand uses. I have tried the Logitech, Creative, Kodak DVC and other cams and found them to be outclassed by the Intel Camera. There are better cams out ther for (dollar amount) or more but for under (dollar amount) you can't beat the Intel!!!!!

Ton Frac

It works great with my PC (Windows 98). I just love the fact you can capture images from your CamCorder! It takes a little practice knowing exactly when to snap a capture but I'm very happy!

On my Laptop it is a bit tempermental. For me to use it I have to open "Adjust Video" and choose external, then switch back to the Intel camera option....works like a charm then.

I'm very happy with the quality of the images. I was using a color quick cam and this is a huge improvment, even in low light.

I purchased the Pro PC camera to use to upload shapshots to my (existing) FrontPage-generated website on an ISP which is not one of AOL,AT&T,Compuserv or Prodigy. After fooling around with it for 3 weeks and calling Intel and Microsoft (Intel's customer service attitude is incredibly bad), I have determined that very probably the "Create and Share" software shipped with the camera will NOT WORK on any ISP except for the four mentioned above. It certainly doesn't work with FrontPage-generated websites. So...buyer beware! If you want to use a different function, or you are as subscriber to one of the above services, you may be OK. Otherwise, better try another camera.