[davidflas]

My mother is looking for a webcam to use with her late 2007 2Ghz Macbook since the monitor cable became loose, etc... She is looking to spend $100 USD or less. I am not up on the latest developments in webcams. Is firewire still the way to go? Specific suggestions wanted..

[turtle777]

Nope, FW is a dead for webcams.

When buying a USB webcam, get one that is USB Video Class (UVC) 1.1 compliant. This means that it won't need a driver for OS X.

I just bought this one, works right out of the box:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RCM-8163 True 1.3 M Effective Pixels 1280 x 1024 30 fps @ 640 x 480
15 fps @ 1280 x 1024 USB WebCam - Web Cams


-t

[mduell]

The Xbox webcam (of all things) is another popular, compatible option (and cheaper than the Rosewill above).

[tooki]

Since Windows Vista also requires a camera to be UVC-compliant, any camera that's compatible with Vista is also compatible with Mac OS X (10.4.9 or later).

Cheap cameras have lower quality (in particular when it's not bright, which is usually the case at home).

I have a Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro for Mac, which is identical to the QuickCam Pro 9000 that's usually a tad cheaper. It's a great camera, very low noise, somewhat wider angle lens than the Apple iSight, so you see more of the room.

[davidflas]

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions, The Logitech seems to be the way to go. @Tooki, have you used the software that comes with the webcam, if so what are your impressions?

[tooki]

It doesn't come with software for Mac. You just plug it in and it works. (You will also want to set the Logitech as the audio input, so you can use its good microphone.)