Current state of inexpensive PTZ outdoor cams?

[linuxsense]

Its been years since I have shopped for IP camers since mine have been working well but I have always wanted a PTZ camera for one side of my house and it looks like some interesting sub $200 units exist now, some of them with optical zoom are even sub $150, so I think its time to integrate one into my system.

Have any of you played around with some of the current sub $200 eBay outdoor PTZ cams from Chinese vendors? If so..verdict?

[knight-of-ni]

I've owned ~4 of the sub $150 ptz cameras, with VGA resolution and 3x optical zoom. A couple had network problems out of the box and got returned. One got hit by a tree during a strong storm (too bad I didn't get footage), and the last one I just replaced after 2-3 years. They all looked like this under varying brand names:
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Loftek

When the sun went down, the image was solid black.

At one point I purchased another one, which had IR lights in it, but I learned the hard way that, because of the IR lights, the camera would not pan up fully 90 degrees. That was a deal breaker for me, so back it went.

My latest camera is this:
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Netcat

Got it for $238 on EBay from China.

And holy cow is this thing good. 1080p resolution, 20x optical zoom, and *long range* IR vision I did not think was possible.
You wouldn't think it with so few IR LED's, but I guess these LED's are new-fangled powerful.

Only thing I wish it had was PoE power.