Xbox 360 hardware accessories - opinions?

[Taz]

I got the bits that I mentioned at the beginning of this thread and here's my take on them:

1. Xbox 360 Quick Charge kit (+ spare battery) - a very good investment if you play a lot! The charger can take two batteries and the Quick Charge kit comes with one bettery so I ordered a second battery separately.

2. Wireless headset. Great idea. You have to disconnect the wired headset from your controller and then have to pair the wireless headset (which is very much like a Bluetooth headset) with the Xbox 360. It takes seconds to pair and then you can use it. I really like the lack of a wire between the controller and the headset but I do find the headset is a bit uncomfortable and, literally, a bit of a pain on the ear! There is another ear loop supplied and i'll try that to see if it's a better fit. The audio quality is very variable (ranging from excellent to very poor) but that may be due to me having a Netgear wireless bridge right next to the 360 which may be causing some interference.

3. Xbox 360 Camera - haven't tried this yet. Will post here once i've found the time to play around with it.

[dancingtornado]

Yeah wireless headset sounds awsome, im gonna buy this in the coming week.
ive got fed up now of moving and pulling the wire out of the controller lol.

[Taz]

I tried out the Xbox 360 Camera today. It's a USB device and plugs into one of the two USB ports at the front of the Xbox 360 (behind a small flap).

You get an extra menu option called 'Xbox Live Vision' in the System settings of the Dashboard. From there you can adjust three basic settings for the camera. You also get a small preview window to see the quality of the camera.

In a room lit by a light bulb the quality was fairly poor. It is a very basic low-resolution webcam type camera so don't expect high quality. I'm sure the quality will be much better in bright daylight but the low-light sensitivity of the camera is poor.

There is a green ring light around the lens when the camera is active and the focus can be adjusted manually on the camera itself.

I haven't tried face-mapping in Rainbow Six: Vegas yet but i'll be trying that out later this evening.

One other thing: you get a (wired) Xbox 360 Live headset included with the camera! That's very useful as a spare.

I'm hoping that there will be more applications for the camera. At the moment it's just a gadget.