HP Webcam HD 5210

The HD 5210 looks attractive in person. It's made of a charcoal grey plastic, with a black front panel.

Start up HP's bundled software, and you'll see the following menu screen; it shows six main tasks in the Features group.

You can also fire up the applications directly, if you know exactly what you're looking for.

Here you'll find the user guide, firmware updates, and links to online support.

You can launch a video chat from the Features screen; click on that icon, and you'll see all the available options, grouped into programs you already have and programs you can download from the Web. I installed Skype after snapping this screenshot; once I did, then Skype moved to the top category along with Google Video Chat.

Here's the main view for the recording and capture software.

Here's me trying on one of the, ahem, more esoteric live effects.

You can make plenty of adjustments in the Settings menu; if you have a fast PC, you can turn more of the eye candy on. No surprise there.

You can also adjust the picture itself; shown here are the basic adjustments (contrast, brightness, etc.) along with an Advanced pop-up window with more settings.

It's no Cyberlink Powerdirector, but ArcSoft ShowBiz lets you assemble basic videos that you shot with the HP Webcam HD 5210.

You can also upload recordings directly to Facebook or YouTube, or photos to Flickr and Twitter, with a single click on top.