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At $99 the LifeCam Studio is among the most expensive consumer webcams out there, but compared to the immediate competition, Logitech's C910, it appears to be a better choice.

Comparing this camera to your standard VGA webcam isn’t really fair; this is a luxury item and it performs like it. At a hundred bucks, it’s still a hard sell, though: even if it performs very well, there are less opportunities for it to perform than we’d like.

The Microsoft LifeCam Studio is a sweet upgrade from a built-in VGA webcam, and good enough for high-definition Internet video chats and even home movies.

It is a little expensive - although for a 1080p webcam, the street price of £50 really isn't bad - and we are very cross about the auto-focus, but as a webcam the quality is unassailable, and it's a nicely designed camera which plays well with every video chat app we used it with.

This very thoughtfully designed cam offers good video and audio features and is one of our favorites for desktop videoconferencing.

It might not be pretty, but the Microsoft LifeCam Studio is a powerful device.