Review / Download for Trust Megapixel "Wide Angle" Webcam

Overall

This webcam is reasonably basic, but does have good sound quality and looks darn cute! The wide angle lens is an asset, too - meaning you can fit much more into the window.

Good :
- Great sound
- Wide-angle lens
- Very stylish design
- easy to install drivers

Bad:
- software could be better

Quick Links:

Driver Download
Installation
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Software
Summary

1. Driver Download
You can download the driver by following the link here for Windows. Unzip the file and then run setup.exe

2. Installation

Installation of this camera is quite straight forwad. Just a matter of putting the CD in the drive and then selecting either to install the drivers, or the software. You've also got a choice of six languages.

Here is it installing the drivers. Once you've installed the drivers you can easily insall Trust's own Photo Tools by clicking on the link provided on the CD interface:

The photo tools enable to you to organise and edit your photos, as well as print them and make a screensaver. The editing is pretty limited, but if you don't want to accomplish masterpieces then the software should be reasonably adequate.

By restarting your computer, the webcam should install itself automatically and then you get the following message on your screen

The webcam clips on to your laptop screen like so.

3. Picture Quality

As with most webcams, the picture largely depends on the levels of light in the room. When I first tried the camera out, the room was reasonably well lit, but it was dark outside. The effect was the picture was a little fuzzy. However, you can lighten the picture using the on screen software. After I did this, the picture was fine.

The next morning, I got a brilliant picture because the room was full of sunlight.

The window size here is large, I've just made it smaller to fit onto this review page.

I'm also convinced about the wide-angle lens now... I ran a little test and can confirm that it has a benefit- essentially it means the camera takes in more than normal webcams. It's useful because the face tracking software will automatially zoom in on your face, and with the wider angle lens you won't lose so much picture quality.

4. Sound Quality

The sound quality is excellent and the built-in microphone picks up sound really easily.

Click here for a clip

Because the microphone is built in as USB, you only have to plug in one cable and not a separate one for the microphone. This is a considerable advantage over webcams that use a separate microphone lead.

Microphones are all very well, but if you're voice chatting you'll probably need either a headset or a pair of headphones to use. This prevents feedback. Something to think about: we have a range of webcam accessories here.

5. Software

The software provided is quite basic; but if you just want to manipulate photos and send them then it's quite good for that.

Firstly, the capturing software is Amcap which is a standard application that comes with a lot of cheaper webcams. It's ok, but can be a little tempramental.

It's a shame Trust couldn't provide separate video capturing software like Logitech does.

As for the software included on the CD, I only installed the "Trust Photo Tools". It enables you to open pictures and manipulate them (in terms of applying red-eye reduction, changing the size, brightness etc). You can edit the photos from your webcam, but you'll have to save them first using Amcap - so this is a little of a let-down. The Logitech facility is therefore a little easier to use because you can capture, save and edit the photos you take with your webcam all at once.

As you can just about make out, you can rotate the images, crop and resize, change colours and flip images. The fundamental tools, but probably the things you need to do most often when editing photos.

The webcam also comes with face-tracking software. It detects your face and then if you're off centre, the software will automatically correct the image. You can turn the option on or off at the bottom of the screen, as well as manipulate the picture you're getting from the camera. Particularly useful is the low light setting, which really brightens up the picture.

I had a small problem with the software that was I kept getting the "Graph Cannot Preview" error with the webcam. It was I think because when the small video icon in the corner is available, the webcam is automatically set to capture. The result is that because this one programme is constantly using the webcam, others cannot use it. Therefore you will not be able to get a picture from using AmCap.

To fix it, I just closed down a few programmes, notably VMSnap1.exe , vsnp2std.exe , tsnp2std.exe and domino.exe . The effect was that the webcam stopped being automatically set to capture, and I was able to open AmCap and get the picture back again. I'm not sure if there's another way of doing it, but that seemed to work. This is quite a common problem with webcams that use Amcap.

5. Summary

The Trust webcam is quite good as a basic webcam, it's just a shame the software isn't as developed as Logitech's. Still, in good light the webcam really thrives and the wide-angle lens is a big plus. The sound quality is great for a little camera like this, and having a built-in USB microphone is also a big benefit.

Other webcams you might like:

- Logitech Quickcam for notebooks

- ViMicro Laptop webcam (ZC301PL)