Genius Eye 320 review

Cheap webcam proves you get what you pay for

Reviews
By Christopher Phin
published
Genius Eye 320
Pictures from the Eye 320 are hardly amazing, but then you get what you pay for

TechRadar Verdict

Basic webcam functionality on a budget, but the image quality is mediocre

Pros

  • +

    Cheap

  • +

    Works well enough

  • +

    Easy to use

Cons

  • -

    Low picture quality

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Apple's laptops and iMacs might all include an iSight camera, but what if you want to add a webcam to a Mac that doesn't have one in the bezel?

The good news is Mac OS X 10.4.9 introduced support for the USB Video Class (UVC) standard for use with iChat, so as long as a webcam supports UVC it will work as an iChat camera without drivers.

And sure enough, plug the Genius Eye 320 in and it appears as a source for video in iChat or Skype. It has no built-in microphone; a boom mic headset is included, but it won't work with the Mac's line-level input port.

Picture quality isn't stellar - colours lack saturation and details are soft - but it's not appalling. Focusing is manual, using a ring around the lens, and the camera will sit on a flat surface or hook onto a monitor.

It's cheap and does the job, but the Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks is still our choice of external webcam.

Christopher Phin