Creative Labs Dual-Mode PC-Cam 350 (WebCam & Digital Camera)

1 This camara sucks.
This camara is a garbage. I bought one and thought it was malfunctioning. I asked for other and found out that that's the way it is. The pictures are very bad, they are useless. Only the web cam works but its resolution is very very bad. I haven't bother to check its video recording capabilities because I suppose it won't be to my expectation. What bothers me the most is that the PC-cam center software that it brings has two sample pictures that have very good resolution. So it swindles to to think that you can take pictures like those using this camara when in fact you can't. I think Creative is taking us as fools including these pictures. I will never buy any product from this company.

2 Decent entry-level digital camera
This device functions as a digital camera, web cam, and video recorder.

As a digital camera, I'd give it a "C-." Picture quality is only average. You can improve the picture quality somewhat with the included software, or use your own image correcting program. But don't expect professional quality images. There is also no zoom feature.

As a web cam, I'd give it a "B." It works fine on a Windows 98/ME computer, but frequently malfunctions on a XP machine. There is no built-in microphone, so you will need your own to record sound.

As a video recorder, I'd give it an "A-." Video is recorded in the .avi format, which is quite large, with no sound, up to about 35-40 seconds. Video quality is very nice.

In conclusion, this device should work well on a Windows 98/ME computer, but I cannot recommend it for a machine running Windows XP, even though Creative insists it's XP compatible. If you have XP and want a Creative PC-CAM, get a newer model than this one.

April 2004 update: the camera is malfunctioning. The power does not turn off unless I remove the batteries. When the power is running, I cannot take any photos or switch to different camera modes. I replaced the batteries with new ones, but that didn't fix anything. My 90-day warranty expired a long time ago, so now I'm going to get a better, more advanced, XP-compatible, (and of course more expensive) digital camera. And it definitely won't be a Creative digital camera.