Customer Reviews

Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX

5 star:		(110)
4 star:		(83)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I spent a lot of time researching webcams. I didn't want something cheap, but I also didn't want to spend a ton of money on something top of the line. This Logitech seemed the best bet for the price. I was waffling between this and another comparably priced (when on sale) camera that had auto-focus.

I chose the Logitech for the following reasons:
- I didn't see much in the way of installation complaints in the reviews
- Several people had mentioned how good the low-light capabilities were
- I knew for sure it could attach to a flat-panel display, since I only have a laptop at home.

Overall, I think it's a good choice:
- The picture is very clear - surprisingly so. I wasn't expecting such good resolution. In fact, I have an 8x10 picture of a bunny on the far wall of my home office (~12 feet away) - if I move my head out of the way, the camera picks it up very clearly. Up close, it seems to be able to "see clearly" to about 6 inches. Anyway, none of my friends have nearly as good a resolution on their cameras, and all have commented on what a great picture they get from me.
- The installation was very easy - just pop in the CD, let it run, reboot, and plug in the camera when prompted (this is for Windows XP).
- As others stated in their reviews, the low-light filter is very good. My home office is fairly dimly lit, and I use the camera mostly at night. Without the low-light filter, this wouldn't be possible.
- The frame speed is pretty good - if you move fairly fast, like waving your arms or fingers at a decent speed, the image will blur. But normal movements - like moving your head around to look at different things, or reaching back to stretch, are just fine. Mind you, that's with a DSL or cable connection. Your image will only go as fast as the slowest connection can handle. If you're online with someone with 10kbps dial-up (or if you're the one with the slow connection), don't expect much movement at all! That has nothing to do with the camera.
- The microphone seems to work, although I haven't used it much. Here again the connection matters a lot. When I've used it with local friends who have a high-speed connection like I do, they say they can hear me very clearly, with no distortion in my voice. When I've used it with overseas friends on slow connections, there was a ton of noise on the line, everything I said was repeated, and I sounded like I'd just inhaled a bunch of helium. That was clearly the connection and not the camera's mic at fault.
- I've used the camera with MSN, AOL, and Yahoo. It works fine on all three messengers. Each is a bit different, but that's because of the messenger, not the camera. I personally like the way MSN handles the video best, followed by Yahoo.

Here's where I think it falls a bit short, or where improvements can be made:
- The camera comes with two "feet" - a round flat foot for when you will place the camera on a solid, level surface, and the arching foot that you see in the picture, which is intended for hanging the camera on a flat panel display. I don't use the flat foot at all, because it doesn't allow the camera to swivel up and down. The arch foot has to be used with a bit of caution - if you have a flat-panel monitor or use your laptop at a desk, it's jut fine - quite stable. But really, it doesn't "clip" to the monitor so it's completely firm. It mostly just perches (with support) the camera on the monitor. If you're like me and you sit on the couch with your laptop in your lap, and shift around once in a while, you have to be a little bit careful. I haven't had problems, but it's something to be aware of.
- The low light filter is a setting in the camera's "control panel." It's not an automatically sensed thing. So if you switch back and forth between using the camera in normal light and low light conditions, you have to keep going back to the Logitech control panel and checking/unchecking the low-light filter box.
- The hue/saturation controls on the driver don't go far enough with low light to overcome the glare of the monitor. I have a lot of bluish light emanating from my monitor, so when I use the low-light filter, my image is a bit pale and sometimes a bit bluish. Not to where it's annoying or anything, just not as natural as in regular light conditions.
- The camera has some ability to auto-adjust for brightness, but how it does that is a little strange. Sometimes it'll stay at a certain brightness for a while which is appropriate, and then it'll auto-adjust to brighter, and becomes too bright. It'll recover, but it's not clear why it does that.

So as I said, if you're OK with having a fixed-focus camera, and aren't interested in paying $100 or more for something fairly high-end, this is a great choice. The picture is clear, and the low-light filter is a must if you're going to use this in a not-so-well-lit room. Add to that easy installation, and you have a winner!

Good luck!

I have to say the only reason I'm giving this four stars instead of five is this is my first web cam so I don't know what else is out there.

The mic works perfect, I've been able to have full conversations with my friends while the video is streaming, and it does stream beautifully. My best friend who lives an hour away (we got them to keep in touch) was impressed with the quality. It's almost like television it's that good.

The camera also comes with 1.3 megapixel still camera capabilities. I've already used this feature and the shots are great. Much better quality than I would expect from a web cam.

The attachment that fits on my flat panel moniter pivots so I can point the lens where ever I need it.

All in all great web cam and as a first time owner of one I couldn't be happier with my choice!

First of all, this is probably what you are looking for, unless you want to be able to take photographs above 640 x 420 resolution, zoom or focus, but then you are looking for a pro webcam, and there are one or two here, but you are better spending your $100 in a digital photography shop. For the rest of you that just want a plug n' play digital camera that not only looks great but doesn't smash to pieces by the end of the week because it fell off the monitor, at an affordable price, actually very cheap for what it does, then the Logitech Quickcam Communicate WebCam is exactly what you need... and what everyone else owns.

This black orb is just bigger than an egg with a claw grip that you can bend around almost anything but is especially designed for LCD monitors, but has no problem with CRT or desks. In fact it has the same grip as the Quickcam pro model from Logitech and maybe if you look at this products photographs you can see it. Okay, so that is your stand. The camera itself looks like HAL from 2001. Pity the central camera lens doesn't glow red, ha aha. It even lights up blue on top when on. Very snazz camera, period.

The ball orb camera thing must click into the stand. The directions do not make this very clear and some may be inclined to just let the camera orb rest on the stand, but it clicks into place so that it can bend and rotate on its axis firmly attached to the claw grip. The cable is a direct camera to USB2 that runs about the height of an average person, so if you want it to see further you need a USB2 to USB2 extension. However the cable is adequate for most.

With XP driver installation is crazy at best. Do not use the windows drivers or the webcam may cause Windows crashing. Do not plug in the webcam. Insert the CD. Install the driver software. Then you are prompted to plug in your webcam and follow what Logitech tell you to do. Okay, now you have the camera set so you can take photographs and camera video with it. XP just crashes the cam if you do not use the Logitech drivers.

One last tip. Avoid lighting at the camera directly by using a reading light behind the camera aimed at you. This will boost your image quality considerably. The autofocus is near perfect for the price. You will not have to adjust this camera except to move it around.

In short, this is what you should have unless you want zoom, focus and high quality photographic images. You can use this for free with Yahoo messenger or MSN. 320 x 240 is a fine resolution to run at. This camera can do 640 x 420.

Just get it, call home, force them to upgrade to broadband and end those $100 transatlantic phone calls. FREE VID-PHONE if you have a microphone! In which case see into getting yourself a gaming headset or similar.

(...)I have tried several other web cams over the past few monthes and have returned them all for a variety of reasons. Finally after all this trial and error searching I found a cam that lives up to my needs, the Logitech Communicate STX...

-Easy set up, as others have stated just run the included program from the CD. I checked the Logitech web site and found newer drivers and a newer QucikCam package and grabbed that. I had my dad install the full sweet so he could play around with different features and it worked perfectly. I didn't want the extra features and just extracted the drivers, works equally well but you don't get the Control Panel feature, you can only access the cameras fine controls from the application you are using (i.e. Video set up from within your messenger app).

-Awesome low ligth filter! As others have stated, it really works and makes a huge difference. My office is right off the living room and I use a lot of indirect light to reduce glare, this puts very little light behind me (i.e. in direct line of the camera lens). With other cams this has created a very dark picture, but the the Communicate STX and it's Low Light boost the image looks great and very well color balanced.

-Great Framerate! Again as others have stated, you get a pretty smooth framerate but it does depend on your connection speed. I have tested this cam on MSN Messenger 7.5 and the latest build of Yahoo Messenger, and I would agree with others, MSN Messenger handles video much better with this cam (and several others I have tried).

-Good sound quality. The integragted mic is adequate but not stunning, but does work well with no real tweaking necessary. I have read some comments on other sites about noise/feedback issues and I have found that if the mic is physically above your speaker approx. 8-12 inches almost all noise issues disappear. This is easy for those with larger monitors but might not be if you use a laptop or smaller LCD, YMMV.

Overall I have been pleasantly surprised by the Communicate STX and would not hesistate to recomend it. It takes little effort to set up and works out of the box with all the major IM apps. If you don't need the tracking and rotation functions of the Orbit models this is the best bang for the buck web cam out right now.

I bought this webcam on the strength of reviews I had read on Amazon and other websites, and it has proved to be a fantastic investment.

I use the webcam with (the latest version of) SKYPE to communicate with my family across the atlantic, and they were amazed with how clear the picture was. I am particularly impressed as the corner where my computer is has very little light at the moment, and the camera manages to compensate for this in an efficient way that doesn't slow broadcast speeds.
The microphone can be used without having to stream the picture, and it works extremely well, producing a clear and sharp voice transmission.

Installation is easy- simply put the disc in and plug it in when told to. The main issue I have read about is the mounting- ideally this could be more secure but the performance of the camera far outweighs this very minor flaw.

I was looking for a mid-range webcam that is easy to use and works well enough to communicate with my family. This one has gone far beyond any expectations I had, and I recommend it whole heartedly to anyone seeking a webcam in this price range.

I don't know where the myraid of customers who review this get the idea that it puts out a decent framerate. It does 15 frames per second, tops. You can put on bright lights, adjust the exposure settings, turn off the "auto exposure", get rid of the brightness boost (all the things that often improve USB camera performance), but none of this helps. You get 15 fps, period. That's fine for el-cheapo on-line AOL-type, call-home-to-grandma webcamming. But it's sluggish and blurry compared to models like the Pro 4000, 5000, Fusion, etc.

I also find that it loses its brightness/contrast/hue, etc settings every time you reboot the PC, a REAL pain.

Picture clarity and color are excellent

The control panels for this camera (where you adjust its settings) often "stall" when you try to get in/out of them, or switch panes. Sometimes, they just lock up.

Environment: XP Pro SP1, DirectX 9c, 8.4.7.1032 drivers. There is a newer driver: 8.4.8.1034A. I downloaded it from Logitech, but the installer obnoxiously insists that I have a "newer" driver already installed, and it won't put the new one on.

I didn't even try the mic, so I can't comment.

If you want a cheap, functional, sub-$50 camera, this would probably get you by. But you'd be much better served by one of the $80 and up models, like the Quickcam "Pro" versions.

I had lots of problems with this camera and actually returned it to Amazon.

The low-light vision was not very good. If you are in a room where you are the brightest subject, then no problem. But if you have a light behind you, or a light-colored background, then the camera will adjust for that and leave you very dark.

The biggest problem was with the software. When I tried to set up the STX microphone (audio tab), the Logitech program completely froze. It froze so bad that you couldn't kill the process using the Task Mgr, and you couldn't even reboot the system with a ctrl-alt-del. In fact, I couldn't even reboot with the power switch (its a "smart" switch typical on most computers these days). I had to actually pull the AC power chord from the back of the computer to be able to restart. For a software program to freeze XP like this is REALLY bad. I never could get the microphone to work, despite many attempts and many unsuccessful workarounds; the system would always freeze up. Obviously some people have systems where the mic setup doesn't hang, but beware.

I just recently purchased the Quickcam STX for my sister who lives overseas in Greece. It's a great way for us to connect especially since we only see each other on an annual basis. Surprisingly, the video and audio is quite good. I do have a Mac and she doesn't have any issue calling me from her pc. We use Aol instant messenger (Video and Audio) or Yahoo Messenger (Video) to connect. I still prefer the iSight for Macs. Unfortunately, you can't use an iSight on a pc. Wish Apple could make the iSight compatible with PC's. Anyhow the STX is a great cam for what it's worth.

I bought this webcam a month back. This is the best webcam I ever tried so far. The features specified for the webcam are pretty much true. The mic which is inbuilt in webcam adds so clarity while exchanging conversation. Logitech provides a very good software with the facility of photo-caputre with the webcam.The best interesting feature of the webcam is Power Boost. It boost power especially for poor light conditions. I recommend this webcam for those who looks for an interesting and lively chat.

Some people said that you need lots of light for the image to be clear. This is not true. I used the camera in the middle of the day or at night and it always had a very good image quality. And the microphone works very well, too. You don't have to shout or anything like this. This is an excellent webcam.