Being a closet Web video camera freak, I was immediately attracted to the beige-and-blue charms of Logitech's eyeball-shaped QuickCam Pro.
I received the universal serial bus (USB) version - a parallel port version also is available - of the QuickCam Pro for review. The advantages of a video camera with a USB connection are two-fold.
Firstly, USB devices can draw power from the PC through the USB connection, sparing an extra power socket and cable - handy when the back of the PC already looks like a nest of vipers.
The second advantage of USB is the promise of higher throughput. In theory, USB delivers up to 12 mbps of throughput, making it several times faster than standard serial or parallel ports.
In the box of our test unit was a single-sheet addendum to the installation instruction manual that changed the installation procedure. If you do purchase this product be sure to follow the instructions.
The correct procedure is to install the QuickCam Pro 4.04 software first, shut down the PC, plug in the camera and restart the PC.