Pros: true-to life color, easy installation, focus ring, free mic
Cons: the "clip on" leg thingy..
The bottom line: Not the best webcam in the world, but the best in its class hands-down.
First off, I know I shouldn't, but here's a shameless plug for my website (that is STILL on topic -- watch!)

To view the Creative Webcam Instant in action, please feel free to view http://www.ihatethebus.com/blog/spazicam.php. Even when it's not on, a still image is there. I can describe the image quality all day long -- but sometimes seeing is what's truly needed. (I also have a lot more captures in different lighting situations, just ask!)

"But Spaz, you never write in computer hardware, why now?"
Well, interesting you should ask that.

One, my mother says that hardware reviews make lots of money. (At least I'm honest!)

But, more importantly, I just spent two weeks searching for the best webcam within my budget ($50 or less), and what I stumbled upon surprised me.

I originally had a Creative Webcam Go ES. That was my husband's cam. I liked it, but when I moved, the image blurred really bad, it couldn't see in low-light AT ALL, and the color was always.. off. I gave that back to him.

Last summer, my father gave me his old Logitech Clicksmart 310. It was a decent cam, although it always had a slight blurriness to it, and no matter what tweaking I did to the settings -- everything always had too much red balance.

I stuck with that for a while, but after a time it got on my nerves. So, I went shopping. The most memorable purchase was the $50 Logitech QuickCam. I thought "Wow! $50! This must be the best cam within my budget!" Well, it wasn't. It had amazing color realism and dark vision, I'll give it that, but it still had a blurriness that couldn't be tweaked away to my satisfaction.

Then, I got the Creative Webcam Instant. For approximately $30, this thing is awesome! Right on the cam itself it has a focus ring, so you can handle any blurriness issues at the hardware level. It's USB, so installation is a breeze (just install the drivers BEFORE plugging it in -- that little tip will make your install ~5 mins instead of 30). I tried out the software that came with it. Decent, but didn't suit my needs. The software is everything you'd expect, though. You can make motion videos, take still images (up to 640x480 resolution for stills, 320x240 for motion), and we're still not to the best part! Well, there's a button on it that can be used to call up the Creative cam software (if it's installed, and you're running Windows), but of course I don't use that (but I might try to tweak the button to do something else..).

The video quality? Decent. I mean, it's a $30 cam, so it's not going to be THE best cam on the market. But, the colors are true (my purple hair shows as purple, not magenta like it does on most cams), and it works decently even in low-light. Sometimes you can even make out my EYE color in the cam pictures, and I have hazel eyes -- something even professional photography rarely catches on film. It keeps up with my constant movement (ask anybody who knows me - I move A LOT), and oftentimes the images it takes look good enough to be from a high-end digital camera.

And of course, where would we be without our free gift? Yes, this cam came with a free mic. Videoconference away! It's a cheap mic, I'll admit it. It's a clip-on, and it has horrible reception. However, if you tweak your windows settings -- you can turn that up to make it useable. You won't use this mic to record music, but you can use it to chat with your friends and family!

One thing to remember -- ALL webcams hate low-light. This one works better than most I've seen, but to get the best picture, be sure to have lots of lighting available when you use it.

Now that I'm done talking it up.. I'm going to mention the one thing I dislike about this cam, just because I want this to be a rounded and fair review from all sides.

The physical design is obnoxious! It's got a thing on it designed to allow the cam to clip onto an LCD monitor. This is GREAT -- if you have an LCD monitor. If you don't, it means you'll leave it folded, and any time you even slightly bump into what the cam is sitting on -- it'll fall over.

HOWEVER THERE'S A SOLUTION TO THAT! The stupid little leg thing can come off. I took a screwdriver to it, that part is independent of any of the circuitry. Also, with the leg off, the front half of the clamp is good for lying the cam on the front of any old monitor, and it has little "feet" that'll hold itself on and keep it from sliding back.

So, a slight annoyance that got resolved, plus lots of positive feedback. I think I'll stick with this cam until some of the better ones come down within my price range -- but I honestly believe this to be the best cam available for the $50 and below range.