ASUS webcams found at Computex by Engadget Chinese

Our brothers-from-another-mother over at Engadget Chinese have spotted some more nifty gear at Computex: the first webcams from ASUS. The 2-megapixel cams interpolate still shots up to 8 megapixels, and can fold up into "business card mode" for quickly scanning in all the digits you'll be picking up, you sexy bastard. The auto-focus AF-200 is scheduled to drop in mid-August, while the manual MF-200 should follow afterwards. A full gallery awaits you at Engadget Chinese.

[purezerg @ Jun 7th 2007 11:36PM]

the important thing about webcam is their drivers. when will manufacturers realise that it's not the resolution of the camera but the drivers for 64bit OSes.

[George @ Jun 8th 2007 12:15AM]

When more than seven people in the world use them.

[darkstar @ Jun 7th 2007 11:50PM]

what software do u use to vid chat???
the highest resolution i've attained is with skype and the video is still sucky! megapixels are useless if no software takes advantage of them.

[boss sauce @ Jun 8th 2007 12:29AM]

"2-megapixel cams interpolate still shots up to 8 megapixels"
Why would anybody want to do this? It doesn't sound like a feature to brag about-- like "digital zoom," it's just doing pixel math after the fact. Or is there more to this feature?

[ALLurGroceries @ Jun 8th 2007 12:39AM]

I'd imagine it's to make it look cleaner at full-screen resolution, like in the 3rd pic of the gallery. More impressive as you walk by and see yourself in greater resolution, even if it's utterly useless for video chat.

[Richard Lai @ Jun 8th 2007 6:22AM]

Simple: HD webcam striptease!

[bram @ Jun 8th 2007 5:05AM]

Hmm, I'm interested. Personally I have the ASUS PRO70 laptop with build in webcam and it's still the best webcam in the world around me. Meaning that the image is sharper, brighter and colours are more realistic than with any other webcam I find at my friends or colleagues. Even when I'm about six meters away from my laptop I still appear in focus and bright.

I don't know if this cam was build by ASUS itself but it gives me high expectation about their new cam.

[Mark Gold @ Jun 8th 2007 10:52AM]

Wow, that silver model looks suprisingly like the now discontinued Apple iSight...

[Eli @ Jun 8th 2007 12:50PM]

It really does. The problem with making a high-end webcam now is that nearly all laptops have a webcam built in, and most people already own one. Apple was smart to discontinue their iSight.

[Mark Gold @ Jun 8th 2007 12:54PM]

Unfortnately, now that I want to get a cam for my PowerBook G4, I can't find an iSight for less than $250. I'm not sure if anything works with iChat AV that isn't FireWire-based.