Confessions of a Tech Junkie
...Innovation 6!/2!°

iBall Swingcam

Last week my parents went out for a conference for about 10 days, so considering the fact that i'll be missing them a lot, i went out to look for a webcam.

The first thing i saw was a version of the Microsoft LifeCam. A nice, pretty, sleek thing it was. Black in colour with an almond-like shape. The illustrations on the box were sweet too; Live Messenger & Yahoo support logo + 1.0 mp + usb 2.0 + Free Headphones + Free Laptop Clip-on + a nice chick who had an awesome smile - in short, typical of Microsoft. Picked it up - checked the price - found it to be 4530 - kept it back.

Next, my eyes got set on this red box. On coming closer, i discovered it was an iBall SwingCam.

Checked out the config... an amazing 1.3 mp, automatic motion tracking, a huge view angle: 230 degrees, low light vision, video reso: 1280x960 @ 15fps, 640x480 @ 30 fps, automatic white balance, 4x digital zoom.

I hadn't even stopped admiring the thing when i discovered that i was getting a bundleful of software as well - all full versions, no trial : It's Me, Face Filter, Mr. Photo, WebCam Mail & WebCam DVR. And the biggest surprise came when i checked the price-tag - a mere 2495 for a simply incredible deal! I think it doesn't get any better than this.

 Plus, one of the software, WebCam DVR, actually lets you monitor your house from anywhere in the world. It captures video and stores it on your HD. You can set an upper limit for the video stored. You can store a night-long vid with a mere 100 mb of space. Plus its got motion detection,  so if an intruder tries to break-in, his motion alerts the cam's software and it mails you the pictures/video clip of the intruder.

Neat, innit?

Now for the ratings: I'll give it a 8.5/10 for value for money...i think its worth every penny you spend on it; a 9/10 for the features; a 7.5/10 for user-friendliness (did i mention that my pc crashed once or twice initially due to a faulty driver installation?); and a 7/10 for the looks.    

Great Deal

1:20 PM, May. 23, 2007 .. Posted by majatt

and a great blog. I don't use theblogs for my tech rants I do that over at http://www.xanga.com/majatt/. I'll definitely be looking for this cam or another model in the line when I got webcam shopping.