Product: QuickCam Pro 3000
Company: Logitech
Website: http://www.logitech.com/
Estimated Street Price: $99.95
Review By: Julien Jay

Design

    The Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 replaces the old QuickCam ‘Pro’ only model featuring a much more assertive look and some new enhancements. The QuickCam Pro 3000 comes with a silver dress, silver & gray pedestal and a black ‘QuickCam’ labeled eyeshade making the device looks futuristic! The fact is that with a QuickCam Pro 3000 on your desktop everyone will want to try it just because the way it looks. The camera itself is really small and perfectly round: that way you can take it in your hand to make snapshots freely. A gray button on top of it lets users create instant snapshots without the need to use their mice. The small hole above the lens is a great enhancement, QuickCam Pro users will like, since the QuickCam Pro 3000 model now comes with a built in microphone. Just behind this small microphone orifice a green LED will light up when using the camera with the appropriate software. An originality of the QuickCam Pro 3000 is its black and opaque visor that acts like a privacy curtain. When you want to be sure nobody sees you while you scratch your nose, just flip down your cool shades for privacy. Obviously you can remove the visor from the camera so you can take it in hand. After you’ve raised the privacy eyeshade you will discover a lens that will remind you of the disposal camera ones. Indeed, these do not have a real lens: in fact the lens is just a piece of transparent plastic that covers the CCD sensor. Just like on those old cameras the gray rounded part that surrounds the lens is here to let you adjust manually the focus by turning the gray rubbery part to capture sharp & net video/pictures. Here lies my deepest regret: no Web cam (Logitech or others) offers an Auto focus feature! This would be a major breakthrough in web cam technologies getting users rid of turning lenses to make clear video/picture with no blur effects. Will we have to wait so long just like when Minolta introduced the first ‘7000’ Auto focus reflex camera? Finally the back of the round camera contains the cable that links the camera to the PC.

    A neat thing in the QuickCam Pro 3000 design is the small rounded opening located behind the lens that looks like a smile. If this part has no use it contributes in making the QuickCam Pro 3000 a cool product. The head of the web cam can be removed from its base thanks to a small screw plastic part. So you can adapt the web cam head onto the provided Smart Clip tripod adapter that lets you put the web cam on a desktop but at a different height than with the standard base, or you can fix it on a laptop screen in order to be viewable from friends & family even while being on trip. The Smart Clip adapter itself is a big innovation since it’s the first one that lets you effortlessly fix on a laptop screen a webcam! It works by simply deploying the left & right corned paws of the tripod around the thickness of the LCD screen: then a simple adjustment of the main part is needed to firmly maintain the camera: since the Smart Clip is made in rubber there’s no risk it can slide.  If the QuickCam Pro 3000 interchangeable support concept is useful it has one major drawback. Indeed the plastic screw that supports the camera on the standard base is too weak so the camera keeps spinning on its support due to the heavy cable located at the rear of the camera, so it can be very hard to position the web cam for perfect shots with the standard base.

Installation

    First you have to know that the Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 device is designed to work solely under Windows 98, 98SE, Me & Windows 2000. It doesn’t work with Windows 95 nor Windows NT 4.0. Your computer should also feature a free USB port with sufficient power so you can plug the camera. You have to install the QuickCam Software provided on CD-Rom to start using your camera. The drivers provided with our sample unit were the 5.4.3 release. Installing them was very easy since Logitech adopted the Windows Installer technology: that way, users are guided by a wizard to install the software properly. Once the files are copied on your computer (Real Player 8 is also installed) and before you can use your camera you’re prompted to reboot. When Windows will have restarted a Logitech installation wizard will appear to finish configuring your web cam. It’ll ask you to plug the camera to your USB port so the Windows drivers can be installed and when it’s done, it tests the camera by showing on your screen, live video of what the camera sees! Finally if the image isn’t good you can tweak some settings to make the video look perfect.

    During our tests of the QuickCam Pro 3000 we have discovered a major bug: if you let the camera plugged to the USB port when you boot the computer once the drivers are installed the computer will hang. So you have to unplug the camera to start the PC and then plug it back when Windows Me has started so you can use it.