Customer Reviews

Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 Pack

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Worked out of the box on my Windows PC. Appealing design and good resolution image. I use Skype phone service quite a bit for international calls and chats with other users. Skype recognizes the camera automatically on both sides. The best feature is the built-in microphone. I don't need a headset microphone anymore. The built in microphone covers my whole 10x10 ft office space and people say they can understand me loud and clearly.

I bought this twin pak for $59.99. The single unit was priced at $49.99 so for $10.00 more, it was a real savings. I sent the 2nd webcam to my brother in another state so we are now sharing some great video calls for free. How cool is that? We are both using Microsoft Live Messenger, which we downloaded and installed online first. The webcam set up was very easy and flawless with both Windows Vista and XP. We both appeared a little blurry at first, but after we manually adjusted the camera's focus ring (around the camera eye) we now have a very clear picture on both. Sound is very clear too. The built in microphone works great and we don't even need to use headphones. We are both very pleased with this webcam. I highly recommend it.

Great Product! Used cheaper and seen several low price units. When it comes to video camera's you get what you pay for. Cheap (under $20) gives you poor pictures. This does better than I expected for the price and the only way to go. Walmart had just the single camera for $49. Double pack is the way to increase's the savings and let you share the fun. Grandma and pa get to see 19 month and 7 month grand kids whenever we want. Easy setup. You still have to use caution with both cameras are on laptops and your audio mics on in the room. If one computer has their volume to high, (or mic close to speakers) you will get feed back, but that can happen with any system. The mics built in does a good job trying to prevent it, but headsets make it easier unless each camera user is familiar with whats happening. Very Happy, and lots of fun. Great picture in low light with the camera software set for low light. Lots of fun animations with the software are funny.

Overall, a good product for the money. Software is easy to load and relatively intuitive. However, my son has an Apple laptop and apparently one can't connect a PC to an Apple computer for video, only text, through [...] which is the Microsoft webcam software default. We also tried AOL instant messenger with no luck. I was able to connect just fine to my wife's computer running Windows Vista and mine running Windows XP Professional via live.com.
The cameras have good focus, decent color, good low light capability, and steady scanning during movement. The focus is a little cheesy with the lens just loosely screwing in and out, and I would have liked autofocus now that I have two of these. Depth of field is good though so not much adjustment is needed.
Overall, it will work just fine for anyone using a PC, but we wasted a lot of time before realizing that Microsoft apparently didn't recognize Apple and hasn't apparently made a compatible way to link a PC to one for video, only text messaging.

I bought these webcams for my Mom & sister for mothers day so that my mom can see here grand daughter grow up. These webcams were so easy to install, insert CD and then follow the directions. The image is clear and the webcam has good adjustments for mounting and focus. The only complaint I have in the Windows Live Messenger software is slightly confusing. but they work great and are fun to use. I would definitely recommend these for anyone looking to connect with friends or family.

So, I went ahead and bought the two pack of web cams, after reading the reviews already posted, which seemed to indicate that with Windows Vista, I would have a problem with installation. And I did. I installed to two laptops (both less than a year old - running windows vista service pack 1) and it installed flawlessly on the newer laptop (that had service pack 1 already installed on it out of the box). The laptop that was upgraded to service pack 1, had multiple problems during installation. I finally was able to get the video working, but the microphone feature would not work. After trial and error, going through the control panel to the device manager, I was able to manually get the microphone to work by selecting 'usb microphone' or something like that for the unknown device and then it worked great.

The picture and audio are both really good, especially considering I paid $50 for two webcams. They work great with the new windows live messenger. I took one star off in the review because of the difficulty with installation.

This webcam was a great purchase. Very easy to setup and use. We bought the two pack so our babies can see and talk to their grandparents across the country. It works with AIM as well as the Microsoft Live chat and starts up automatically when you request a video session. Great for the price.

The twin pack is a bit of a rip since Amazon has each camera sold individually for $26.99 and the same deal on shipping so,why buy this twin pack?

I am writing this review having just finished exorcising my computer of the software this webcam comes with. Let me explain. After opening the box and inspecting the contents I noticed the USB connector was taped over with a warning written on the tape saying not to install the webcam without installing the software first. I obeyed and put the software on my computer, but I opted out of putting Windows Live Messenger because I already have Skype installed. No sooner than immediately after I installed this software and tested the camera my internet began to behave erratically, loading pages slowly or not at all sometimes. Even my favorite tried and true bandwidth-checking site stopped loading so I couldn't check my bandwidth. Having no doubt in my mind that this camera's software was the offending element I promptly uninstalled it and sprinkled some holy water on my computer for good measure and rebooted. Aaaah. My internet worked again. Sensing the usual chicanery from Microsoft I decided to cast off the dire warning that was bonded to my camera's USB connector and plugged in the camera, again, without installing the software. Behold! The camera still worked even without the invasive software. I inspected my system imaging devices (On Windows XP Right click Computer->Properties->Hardware->Device Manager->Imaging Devices) and the camera drivers were still installed. My advice to anyone who buys this: do exactly as I did. Install the software which will install the drivers and then uninstall the Livecam software (Start->Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs). This will keep your webcam drivers but won't keep the onerous software included with the webcam. Hope this helps!

I installed the software on my Acer 3610 Laptop and then plugged in the camera and that's where things went downhill. The WinXP OS wouldn't recognize the camera and kept asking my to install the drivers. I eventually determined that there was updated software for the camera from Microsoft. That didn't help. I wasn't able to get the camera to work at all. It may have had a conflict with my Brother MFC-8220 USB printer. There's no way I'm plugging this into my new laptop without backing the system up.

The camera worked without a problem on my wife's tower. I did expect more from the performance of the camera overall. I've since done a bunch of research on cameras and found this to be on the mid-low end scale.

The button on the top is a PITA. Everytime you pick it up MSN starts up.

Not related to the product specifically but to my experience installing it: Other websites suggested running a utility to get the OS to forget about all USB devices. Once I did that most of my USB products wouldn't work (keyboard, external drives, printer/scanner) - again they were asking for drivers. Fortunately I had a restore point that I could go back to and that un-did all of the mess.