having had a couple of hp cameras myself then i would strongly agree the sound on these is not the best and as youve said some models are terrible,remember though that most cameras used as a webcam are pretty much the same and never give the quality of sound like a dedicated webcam,mainly because most makers just add it as a feature to attract more buyers and dont put the effort into quality in that area, after all its a digital camera,perhaps your software may allow you to use a seperate microphone but it would be simpler to buy a seperate webcam an innitial cost but always connected and ready to go and obviously the sound is much better,the problem many have that i come across is they start their program only to find they havent plugged the camera in before hand and then have to sign out and then exit the program connect the camera and then restart the program for it to recognise it,(camfrog) being one such program.it quite annoys people.