Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 Webcam (Gray)

very nice, although you don't need these anymore because they are built into laptops and smartphones nowadays. but if you don't have a laptop or cell phone for some reason, this is a very nice video camera.

I bought the Lifecam 6000 and my girlfriend bought the NX6000 for her notebook. When we're both in town they work ok, the sound is always a little garbled and the picture quality is so-so. She recently traveled to a major southwest city and our communication became very poor - jerky video and bad sound. Truly unusable. She checked her internet connection speed and that was ok, so maybe it's the lifecams. Microsoft seems to not support them as well as other products. They seem to treat them as toys for the home as opposed to serious business use, which we expected them to be. They actually have a different advertising agency handling their lifecams from their other business products, which has been very unresponsive on questions I had when I wrote a review of them.Another gripe I have is that I had sent in the boxtop and my Amazon receipt for the Rebate to a 3rd party company that's handling the rebates, and they sent me a letter denying my rebate because I hadn't sent in the boxtop - which I did. Maybe Microsoft is losing too much money on Vista to pay their rebates. I am filing a complaint about this with the Washington State Attorney general's office.I could not recommend these to serious business users.Frank DelaneyProducerRaw Bytes Computer News NPR KPBX FM 91.1 Spokane, [...]

I thought I'd take a chance on this cam since- as one other reviewer stated- it SHOULD be compatible with Window XP. I'm running Win XP media center edition on a BRAND NEW Gateway 825 GM. 3400+ cpu, 1GB main memory. Essentially no other software installed and no other peripherals installed. Shouldn't be a problem, right? Wrong!I installed the software for this cam, downloaded and installed the Windows Live Messenger when promted by installation, followed all the prompts during installation and rebooted. Nothing. I got a "initialization error" when starting the lifecam software. Device manager and the windows system information reported the camera was "operating properly" but the apps couldn't see the cam or initialize it (yes I made sure I only had one app running that was trying to access the camera). I uninstalled the software and reinstalled it. Same result. I tried different USB ports- maybe I had a dead one, same result. I installed yahoo messenger and shut down all the other software, YIM said the camera "wasn't plugged in". I uninstalled the lifecam software with all the fancy bells and whistles and left only the drivers. Same result.I went to the MS lifecam support website. Not one mention was made of this type of issue. Mostly things about how to connect to someone with Windows Live Messenger (WLM) software and connection issues. Nothing on the actual camera or driver/installation errors.This product is going back, be assured of that. Silly me- thinking microsoft would make a product that actally worked on ALL of their systems, the ones that are on the shelves and in peoples homes now. I don't care if it's compatible with Vista, I don't have Vista and probably won't for a good ten years.

this webcam was purchased as a gift; it is the same model as I use to Skype with my family. I am pleased with the picture resolution and I do not need to use a headset for the audio; just sit in front of the monitor(camera sits on top) and talk. I had looked at the top model of the Microsoft webcams(cinema line) and found that to get the maximum performance from the video, a quad processor is required and that is found on the newer high end computers; in addition, other reviewers had an issue with a constant whine with the cinema line microphone.So, this one works great on my Dell 4600(7 yrs old) running Win XP Pro; Intel duo core processor.