Creative Live! Cam Voice review

Creative turn to voice not video for the focus of this webcam

3 August 2006 12:55 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Creative's latest webcam promises to cut out background sound so all that is transmitted is your voice rather than all that stuff in the background. But can the webcam with two microphones and a handsfree kit thrown in for good measure deliver?

Creative has been the grandaddy of the webcam market for over a decade now, however in fairness little has changed and The Live! Cam Voice follows similar styling to the company's first forays in the market. That means one thing really; they are on the large side and this time the excuse is that the unit packs two microphones alongside the camera in the casing.

Aside from the camera and those two microphones, the only other noteworthy mention is a glowing light underneath to stop those who are always worried that their image is being broadcast around the world, that it isn't. Green for off and red for recording. It's simple, but none the less an addition we like.

Load up the now standard Creative software application and there is plenty on offer. Remote Monitoring via the Internet and an FTP connection, Motion Detection so you can catch midnight raiders and time lapse video so you can record 1 frame every 30 seconds.

In addition to the Creative WebCam Center users also get a basic art package called Photo Manager and this allows you to take the rather low res images captured with the webcam and through software interpolation boost them up to 5 megapixels.

In use and the unit's ability to cut out sound is as good as it says it is. Our test laptop's fan is incredibly noisy as is the background noise in our office. In all our tests the unit did well to remove that noise, however the same can't be said for the noise on the image. Recorded footage is grainy and if you attempt to use the digital zoom the results are even worse.

Verdict

Good sound, poor picture makes this a webcam that is perhaps more expensive than it should be. However it's not all bad news, we do like the wide angle lens and if you are looking to fit lots of you in the picture to talk to grandparents on the other side of the world then this is certainly one to consider.

It's just we would have thought the humble webcam would have come on a lot more than this.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Creative
Price as reviewed: £79.99
The good: Skype certified, wide angle, headset included in the box, two mics to cutout background noise
The bad: Noise on images
Quick verdict: Good sound, poor picture makes this a webcam that is perhaps more expensive than it should be
Score