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Creative NX Ultra (Discontinued)I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the image on this camera. The sensitivity is good and the color is amazing. The color is actually a bit over-saturated but looks great. Reds and greens are quite startling. It also has a full 640x480 CCD image sensor. Most of the less expensive cameras only have 320x240 sensors.
The NX Ultra also has a wide angle lens. This may be an advantage or disadvantage depending on what you want to use the camera for. If for scenery, like out a window, I would concsider it a disadvantage. However, if the intended use is in a close environment, like in a small room, or where you are usually sitting close to your computer monitor, it does cover more of the room than other cameras. It also tends to introduce a bit of the image warping in the corners that is common with very wide angle lenses. I found the curving seems to be more distinct on the left side of the image than on the right.
It comes with a small headset microphone/earphone, rather than having a built-in mike. However, I have found the headset to be one of the most comfortable small headsets I have tried. It slips easily over my ear and has a small up and down adjustment to get the earpeace centered over the ear canal. The quality isn't great, but completely acceptable for telephone style conversation. I'm actually using it with my professional wireless microphone system when I take horse riding lessons so my instructor can talk to me easily. All the other headsets I have tried either fell out of my ear as the horse trotted along, or were unwearable over my cowboy hat.
The camera's major drawback is not being able to separate the camera from its stand. The stand won't fold flat so trying to cary it in my notebook case is not practical. The stand does fit nicely on a flat panel screen or notebook, and can be folded so that three rubber feet will sit on a desktop. It is a little difficult to position on a desktop as it tends to move as the cord flexes, but not as badly as the NX or the NX Pro.
Overall a good buy and a good picture. This is one of my reccommended cameras, but look carefully at the sample images and note the wide angle view before rushing out and buying this one.
Screen shots of camera configuration settings
Device
Advanced
 | Sample images showing how this camera performs under different lighting conditions |
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