For Philips, the SPC 1330NC is a high-end webcam.  It's got very traditional styling with lots of lightweight black plastic, with a stand that can be attached to all sorts of screens apart from laptops. 

Although it looks like some of its predecessors, there are some big changes.  The SPC 1330NC now includes an automatic focus, a wide-angle 2 Megapixel CMOS sensor, as well as a pair of noise-cancelling, echo-reducing microphones.  Do all of these features add up to a great webcam?

An excellent image quality

It's a rare treat to see such an excellent quality image from a webcam.  The amount of detail is quite simply incredible.  Both at night and during the day, this webcam can handle different light levels without overexposure.  When you look closely, there are two points to note.  Some contrasts are a little overdone, that produces too much sharpness.  Secondly, like with most webcams, this one struggles in a dark room, leading to a lower framerate with jerky movements.

Microphone quality

The sound from the microphone is also a success, with virtually no background noise picked up.  Voices sound clear and are easily recognisable.  What else could you ask for?

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New: What does the webcam really see?

Our Product Face-Off allows you to compare still images to give you an idea of a webcam's colour handling and other details.

This video, though, allows you to listen to the sound as well as check the fluidity of movements and transitions and see how it copes with different light levels.

This clip represents what the webcam would produce in a Windows Messenger video chat with an ideal Internet connection.  We captured the stream directly at source, and host the video ourselves to avoid any loss of quality from re-encoding.