Microsoft's budget 720p HD-5000 LifeCam reviewed

A week after becoming a reality, Microsoft's LifeCam HD-5000 webcam has been given the review treatment by Mobile + Netbook and, while it delivers what looks to be generally excellent quality video, it doesn't score perfectly high marks. For one thing, this cam does not feature onboard hardware encoding, which resulted in 40 percent CPU utilization for this tester when recording at 720p on a Core i5 750 processor -- ouch. This also means that the cam will not be usable for Skype HD, as that service requires onboard hardware encoding. But, other than some slow focus issues, the camera delivered quite good quality and color and, at just $50 MSRP (we're seeing them for $40 online), it's still quite a bargain.