What's the best webcam?

There are ways to avoid these price premiums, nevertheless. Coupling a webcam with a low-cost VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service just as Skype will enable you to hold a conversation with your loved ones and get some face-to-face time as you chat.

VoIP telephony has roots in business communications, and was originally used for inter- and intra-office communications. It depends on a solid internet connection - something home users have only recently been able to take for granted. Adding a webcam to the mix lets you conduct web-based conference calls or have video chats with friends.

Internet telephony makes sense for businesses. It's more economical than boarding a flight or jumping on a train to go to a two-hour meeting. And calls conducted over the web are far cheaper than using a traditional phoneline, too.

The type of calls you want to make

Which webcam you need will largely depend on the type of calls you want to make. Single caller to single recipient is the most common scenario, now you may need to be able to chat to several people simultaneously, often in separate locations.

There's as well the issue of compatibility. During many webcams work with Windows and Mac, some use special drivers to support extra functions. These are often available only for recent versions of Windows.

In general, you shouldn't have any difficulty getting your webcam to work with the most popular instant-messaging services, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. Not all devices are Skype-certified or will necessarily work with your Vonage or Truphone app.

The best-known internet telephony service

Skype is the best-known internet telephony service, nevertheless there are lots of others that use a setup known as software internet protocol service.

Note, too, that if one person has a VGA-resolution webcam and the other a 2Mp-plus 'HD' one, the image quality will only be as good as the inferior device is able to support. Similarly, HD video capture is as dependent on a smooth network connection - in which packets of data are sent and encoded at a sustained rate - as things now stand on expensive video hardware.

If you don't have a microphone, don't worry: all modern webcams have them built in. Noise-cancelling research will be useful if you'll be making calls in a noisy office.

If you're not fond of fiddling with settings, plump for a webcam with an autofocus. If you're a bit of a fidget, face-tracking innovation will be useful.