Genius Look 320S Webcam

The Look 320S webcam is definitely one of the best designed webcams I've seen from Genius. To me when I think of Genius webcams I think of gimmicky designs that may be fun to look at but not very practical. The Look 312P and Look 315FS are prime examples of what I'm talking about. This time, however, I was in for a pleasant surprise.

The Genius Look 320S looks like a tiny cylindrical unit when you open the packaging. Once out it opens up to a spotlight-style webcam design with a convenient base that you can place on your desk, on top of a monitor, or even attach it to your laptop's monitor frame.

It's not the most perfect design though. If only the base was able to split a little more, it would be possible to fix it to an LCD monitor's frame as well. The instant snapshot button located on top of the cam is a great feature, but in this instance it's a little too sensitive. Everytime you accidentally even touch the button while adjusting the cam, you'll be clicking pictures of yourself.

When it comes to the picture quality, the Genius Look 320S works great giving you a great looking sharp video stream at 640x480 pixel resolution. It automatically adjusts to the lighting conditions. When we tested it in low light, the image quality stayed consistently clear - the blanched colors being the only true loss in quality. This makes it a great webcam to use in any circumstance, which in turn is perfect for laptop users looking for a portable webcam that works well.

The biggest mistake that Genius made with this, otherwise great cam is that they didn't integrate the microphone into the cam. Instead thay provide you with a clip on mic that goes into the microphone jack on your PC. Considering that this webcam is ideal as a portable solution, giving a mic that doesn't even attach to your webcam separately is a very silly mistake that mars this otherwise great product.

The Look 320S comes bundled with DD Theme Party 2.0, which tracks your face and applies cartoony overlays to it. Those using DD Theme Party 1.0 can get a free upgrade to v2.0 at ddplaycam.tv. The software is fun to use as always, and with version 2.0 you get a whole lot of new themes to use.

The Look 320S is definitely the best (and the most sober) offering by Genius. But does that justify its price point of Rs. 2,500? Well it does seem a bit too steep for a home webcam, especially one without an internal mic.