Product Review: Logitech Webcam C200 Captures Good Videos and Pictures with Default Setting

This article reviews the Logitech Webcam C200. It can capture both video and photos with a 640 x 480 pixels VGA sensor. With default settings, it records good quality videos and captures crisp images. Increase the picture size, and image quality suffers. For a retail price of $29.99, this is a good webcam as long as you do not set it to larger image sizes. Below, this article details what comes in the box, how well the Logitech C200 webcam captures pictures, and how well it records videos. I also discuss in short the software that came with this webcam.

First, the Logitech Webcam C200 comes with a software installation CD and detailed instructions on how to set it up. The software CD includes drivers for the C200 webcam, Logitech Vid, and Logitech webcam software. The software that comes in the box is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP with SP2 or higher. The webcam itself is USB 2.0 compliant. Logitech Vid is Logitech's own video phone over the Internet software. It is free for owners of Logitech webcams and easy to setup. All one needs to do is register online with Logitech Vid, and this is done during the initial webcam setup. Once the user creates an online Logitech Vid account, the software prompts the user to take his/own profile picture. This is easy to do yet tricky at the same time. Easy in the sense that all one needs to do is clasp the webcam to the top of one's laptop, sit in front of the laptop, and click a button in a browser window to take the photo. However, it is tricky in the sense that the C200 webcam does not have a zoom (physical or digital), so the user needs to adjust the webcam position and his/her own body position to capture a good profile picture. In addition, if the lighting in one's room is poor, the profile picture looks dark, and the features of one's face become hard to see. However, the software allows you to retake the picture as many times as you want until you get a photo you like. Once you find a spot with good lighting, you can get a good looking and recognizable profile picture.

For those unfamiliar with Logitech Vid, it allows people who have Logitech webcams to setup video phone calls. The service is free to Logitech webcam owners. However, every person you want to call needs to have a Logitech webcam that supports the Vid software. Otherwise, you will not be able to call the person using Vid. Luckily, the Logitech webcam software that you installed on your computer allows you to use your C200 webcam with other video and voice over the Internet calling services including Skype, SightSpeed, and Google Mail.

Second, once you operate the C200 webcam in a room with decent lighting, it takes good pictures with the default picture size (320 x 240 pixels in QVGA mode) setting using the Quick Capture feature of the webcam software. On the box, Logitech says that the webcam can take up to 1.3 megapixel pictures. Increase the picture size, though, and the picture quality decreases, as the pictures tend to become noisy, more sensitive to lighting conditions, and easily blurred when lighting is not that great. This article includes pictures taken both in QVGA and HD (960 x 720 pixels) modes. As you can tell, the QVGA pictures are better even though the HD pictures were taken in a room with two windows that allowed sufficient light to enter that room.

Third, the Logitech C200 webcam takes very good videos with the default QVGA mode. You can view a video recorded with this webcam on YouTube. It took the author a couple times to get this video just right, as he needed to set the microphone gain to its maximum, and sit within a foot of the webcam. With the microphone gain in the middle slider position, and his mouth located more than a foot away from the C200 webcam, the author noticed that the sound faded in and out while the video played. Of course, this video was recorded with the webcam facing away from the author, so it is possible that the microphone was not in an ideal position to record his voice properly. On the plus side, I found that the webcam stayed in focus while I recorded a short video of Dogbert even though I held the webcam in my hand, and I moved it around from time to time. The universal clip is also a nice feature, as the user can easily clip the C200 webcam to one's laptop screen, and the webcam will stay in place. In addition, the clip can be positioned in multiple ways, so one can also set the webcam on the desk. This way, the user can record videos or take pictures of objects or people not directly in front of the computer. This is a feature that webcams built into laptops lack - unless the user points the entire laptop in the direction of the people and / or objects one wishes to record.

In closing, the Logitech Webcam C200 is a good webcam for people who are interested in making Internet quality videos to be posted on websites like YouTube, who want to make person to person Internet video phone calls, and who enjoy taking quick and dirty digital photographs without worrying about capturing professional quality images. In short, I would give this webcam three out of five stars. It takes good photographs and videos for a webcam that sells at a $29.99 retail price, but if you want a webcam that takes professional quality pictures and videos, invest your money in a more expensive webcam.