Creative Live!Cam Optia AF review

If you can put aside Creative’s issue with mid-word punctuation, the Creative Live!Cam Optia AF is well worth a look as your webcam of choice. Just don’t make any dalek falling over jokes.

Pros
The Creative Live!Cam Optia AF comes into its own as a surveillance webcam. You can twist it 270 degrees to point it at just about anything, and then leave it to take stills at intervals you set, or when motion in its sight sets it off. You can catch all the action from anywhere with internet access, so it’s a great way to keep an eye on your food at your desk when you nip out for a smoke. Or even capture a plant growing if, you know, that’s what you’re in to.

Cons
The Creative Live!Cam Optia AF may have a 2.0-megapixel squished inside, but that doesn’t mean it’s as good as Logitech’s offerings with the same specs. In comparison, it struggles in low light, but at least with a lamp on your problems are solved. There’s no getting round the messy bundle of software provided though, which is more hassle than it’s worth to install. Better off just sticking with Skype plug and play access, unless you want to turn the Creative Live!Cam Optia AF into a CCTV cam.

In summary then…
For the price you pay, there are better webcams out there for video chatting. If all you want to do is see the person you’re chewing the virtual fat with, go elsewhere. If you’re security minded though, the Creative Live!Cam Optia AF makes a fantastic CCTV cam which will lash up all the evidence into a video for you quickly and easily. Paranoid? Buy this.

Size

Image Quality

Build

Features

Value

Overall

Like the look of this webcam? Get chatting about the Creative Live!Cam Optia AF on the PriceRunner forums.

Related Articles:

1. Group test: webcamsYears ago, a webcam meant a low-res, still image of your mug that refreshed every few minutes. Now though, with the advent of faster internet connections and tiny, cheap video streaming technology, webcams are becoming fantastic tools for play and even work, with most happily syncing up to all your favourite instant messaging clients, as [...]...
2. Creative Zen Stone Plus 2GB reviewDesigned to be an iPod Shuffle beater, the Zen Stone succeeds on several fronts. It’s got a tiny screen so you can actually browse tracks, assuming your eyesight is especially keen; there’s an FM radio built in; and it’s cheaper. Oh, and there’s a speaker on the back of the MP3 player, so you can [...]...
3. Creative Vado HD review Creative flips Mino the bird with this HD-shooting, HDMI-outputting, battery-swapping, software-packing 8GB Flash memory camcorder. But how does it compare with the big boys? Read on… Pros The not-so-daft Vado is in the same league as Flip’s Mino HD. It isn’t quite a clone war: the Vado HD boasts twice the storage (8GB), a larger [...]...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Rate this article