Creative Live! Cam Optia Pro Review

The Creative Live! Cam Optia Pro is designed for both desktops and notebooks.  It’s relatively large, and rests atop an adjustable easel base. The bullet-shaped camera sports a protruding glass lens with a VGA sensor. As with its other webcams, Creative wins points for the Optia Pro’s intuitive plug-and-play design.

Audio in our chats was pleasant, thanks to the built-in noise-canceling mic, but it often didn’t sync with the video. Using Yahoo Messenger, we noticed moderate latency, especially around the mouth. The resolution wasn’t great either; although bright, video looked a tad blurry. The video was delayed with Skype, too, and skin tones were oversaturated.

The camera, which can take photos up to 5 megapixels, renders skin tones accurately, but performed poorly in low light: A fleece pullover looked noisy, not textured.

 

As far as effects go, the Optia Pro has everything you could want: avatars, background swaps, and doodling. But they’re tricky to learn, and they’re inconveniently contained in multiple programs.

In both size and execution, the Live! Cam Optia Pro is a bit clunky, but you get a lot of features for the price.

 

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