Microsoft recently unveiled its new series of LifeCam webcams. The Whack received the LifeCam VX-5000for review. The VX-5000 offers convenience and is portable enough not to interfere with your work. The striking thing about the VX-5000 is the bendable base, making it easy to place it on a desktop monitor or fix it to a laptop. The camera is available three different colors: blue, green and red (we received the blue one for review).

Setting up the camera was a breeze. The installation of the bundled software went smoothly and the webcam was up and running within 10 minutes of opening the package. However, it took considerably more time to open the package itself.

When logged in to the Windows Live messenger, clicking the button on top of the camera starts a Windows Live Call: it loads your contact list, and you have to select one to start a conversation with. There’s a unidirectional, noise-canceling mic on the Lifecam VX-5000. As can be expected, the webcam is optimized for Windows Live but works pretty well with others like Yahoo! IM and Skype. In low-light conditions, the video was less than desirable quality, but once you switched on the lights, the quality was pretty good.

For some reason, the default resolution for still photos was set to 640×480 (VGA), but you can easily change this to 1.3 megapixels. Even at that resolution, it falls short of some cell phone camera images, but then again this is not your everyday high-end webcam. The software bundled with the camera allows you to add all sorts of goofy stuff to your video conversation (you know what I’m talking about — stupid fish!).

The Photo Swap feature lets you share photos with whoever you are conversing with. There’s also support for one-touch blogging - a feature I did not try because I don’t have a Windows Live Spaces account. The microphone built into the LifeCam VX-5000 works pretty decently. However, I could not find any place where this can be over-ridden with another microphone.

The Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000 is easily a nice-to-have accessory, being in the mid-range of both price and features. Priced at US $49.99, it is actually available for around $37 on Amazon and other online retailers.