MSI StarCam Genie

The StarCam Genie is available for ~$30/€20, for this price you get a compact box which holds the webcam, a manual, driver CD and USB cable. The retail box explains all the features of the Genie in detail.




The first thing you see when you plug it in, is its magnificent blue lightning all around. It has a good looking shape and don't look bad next to your other components. MSI did well, choosing for a black design; there it is a neutral color for most of us.



This webcam has an fps-rate of 30 like most do and weighs in at about 86 grams including the USB cable. Its size and weight makes it possible to attach it to the standoff with small magnet. The standoff is multi-functional; it fits on LCD screens, notebooks screens, on / near your CRT screen.




The webcam has a resolution of 1.3 Megapixel (same as 1280x960) for still picture capturing through a glass lens. I took 3 photographs with the webcam with different lightening conditions.

My computer is placed near my window and there’s a lot of natural light inside the room, with this result
As you can see, the sun is very strong at my window, so the webcam can’t give us a good photograph. So I’ve adjusted his stand, this was a right choice!
The next photograph has been taken at night. The only light comes from the LCD screen.
And the last photograph has been taken also in the dark, only with artificial light from behind the screen.

You can see a dark shadow at a few photo’s, this may vary of the light raid and strength at your own computer-space. Also most photo’s are unsharp, not good of quality or too dark. But when you have the right light raid and strength like on the second photograph, it’s just magnificent.

As you can see looking at the different photos, lightening is crucial with this webcam, in dimly lit environment a lot of detail is lost, with better lightening you can more clearly make out subject, but even then the image is not very sharp.

Software tweaks next ->