Dell Vostro 3550 Webcam issues

Hi there.

I got my Dell Vostro 3550 around 5 months ago now and have been impressed in some areas, disappointed in others.

I love the keyboard, it has a nice metal chassis, pretty good feature set for the money etc. However, the screen sucks (Colours are fairly horrible, can be seen flickering at certain angles, bad viewing angles all around) the back of the screen is flimsy, being liable to damage (As I found out the hard way - broken screen) and now have graphics problems since it has been replaced.

The other problem is the webcam. I mean, the camera has a very good frame rate for a webcam, smooth motions, little blurring etc. But the colours are horrible. Is it just me, or should red colours not be brown, and my face to be in almost total darkness in a well lit room? The camera also stops working a lot, for no apparent reason etc.

So here is a picture to demonstrate how bad it is:



Can anyone suggest what might be wrong with this camera, or if it really is just because it is shocking.

The XPS Studio 16 I have looked at (Yes, a different line of laptop, a higher line, but all the same) and the colours are much, much better. Everything looks washed out on this thing.

I've looked around software, looked for conflicts and cannot find a single setting that fixes this problem...

Thanks

- Ross