Sweex Hi Def 5M Webcam (Max resolution 2560 x 2048 pixels!) £19.99 delivered @ WH Smith (Includes face-tracking & microphone

not that great a price IMO

Heat added, I couldn't see it any cheaper!

Heat added, rep added if you post a short review on this thread ;)

Also comes with 3yr guarantee.

Manual here; http://www.sweex.com/documents/WC056...manual_eng.pdf

I'll post review in a few days' time as I could hardly find any online - this is a pretty new product.

I'd like to see a review of it 1st.

and for that it gets heat from me.

This webcam is really only 1280x1024 like most others and given the seemingly small lens I wouldn't expect that much from it.

NOT like most others - most webcams are actually 640 x 480 and use software to upscale to 1.3 Megapixels. This has 1280 x 1024 maxxed up to 5 Megapixels. This means you can fill your screen with video without losing any quality like you do with most webcams.

sweex stuff is garbage - i had a smartcard reader and it melted itself

Actually, NOWHERE does it say it records video at 1280x1024.

I'd be surprised if it recorded video at 30fps above 640x480. Hence the reason they give so little info on it. Just some clever wording to make you THINK it has decent specs.
Only place this thing will be fit for is the bin. You get better and cheaper webcams from HK on fleabay.

Shouldn't really title this deal as "5M" because it's not, it's 1.3M, as later stated.

Interpolated resolutions are a scam... anyone can resize an image or video without the camera doing it for you, the only reason they invented this was to con folks into thinking the cameras were better than they are.

It'd be decent if it was truly 5mp, but at 1.3, cold, I'm afraid.

Cold from me for the reasons above, which are all correct. Sweex do make junk products, the camera isn't really 5MP (in fact, it could as easily have claimed to be 50MP since it's only blowing the images up, and imaginaiton's the limit there), and if it peaks at 1.3MP, odds on it being capable of HD res video are very remote. Buy it if you want, but don't expect good quality. Better than phone quality, but average for a webcam, and vastly inferior to a camcorder.

In general I am quite anti-sweex too but I bought a wireless sweex dongle without realising it was a sweex and it seems to be just fine.

OK, order arrived today (placed order on Sunday night) - so excellent free delivery.

Product plugged into USB 2 port and was picked up by Windows XP no prob - no drivers required.

Opened up Skype, selected the new cam and there I was, fantastic picture quality. So much better than the Logitech QuickCam I've perservered with for too long.

Face tracking works very well - I tried it with ManyCam Virtual Webcam software for adding cartoon glasses, hair, backgrounds etc The glasses accurately follow your face around if you're moving - this feature integrates with Skype really well.

For video display you get options for Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, Sharpness, Gamma, White Balance, Backlight Comp & Colour Enable.

For camera control you get options for Zoom, Focus, Exposure, Iris, Pan, Tilt & Roll.

Product comes in retail box with manual on mini-CD.

I took a gamble as hard to find reviews but this is much cheaper than other webcams that offer true 1.3M video @ 30fps and all I can say is that the gamble paid off.

Excellent value