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Today, the largest selling category of cameras is the cell phone. Not surprising. It takes just one glance at Facebook to know how camera-obsessed the current generation is. And I'm not just talking about teenagers snapping photos of themselves and their friends. Moms and grandpas, activists and artists alike have taken to the mobile camera and are out to make the most of it. And let's not forget, citizen journalism was effectively born thanks to the mobile camera. So here are a couple of options to help you pick your weapon of choice.
Sony Xperia Arc
This svelte entrant has more to boast than just its curvy body. Sony Xperia Arc is endowed with an 8.1-meg camera that gave us great results, no matter what we snapped, no matter where. The colours were bright and lively and the pictures sharp even in slightly low-lit surroundings. Not a surprise considering the fact that the company decided to rope in the Exmor R technology, previously limited to Sony Cyber-shot digicams and Handycams. You get three Capturing Modes – Normal, Scene recognition and Smile Detection. Under varied lighting conditions, the camera gave us really good results with excellent colour tones and crisp picture quality. The convenient ‘Touch Capture' option makes the physical shutter redundant, letting you click by tapping on any part of the ‘Live view' screen. The HD video recording too lives up to expectations and has a simplistic video editor that lets you snip the footage.
Love: Excellent picture quality, Exmor R sensor
Hate: Weirdly placed physical shutter, lack of editing options
Rs 32,000
Apple iPhone 4
While we bite off our fingernails in anticipation of the iPhone 5, let's consider its predecessor. Endowed with FaceTime and HDR capabilties, the Apple iPhone 4 has a 5-megger as its main (rear) camera with an LED flash. The clicker has a built-in LED flash to deliver well-illuminated pics in a low-light ambience. Colours are usually slightly more saturated in most pictures, lending a certain vibrancy to the sharp, clear photographs. Helping you get closer to the subject is the 5x digital zoom and a tap on the screen lets you focus wherever you want. Of course, the front-facing camera, designed mainly for FaceTime, is a boon in disguise to us narcissists. You'd love flaunting the iPhone 4 while taking high-def videos (720p up to 30 fps) although you'll need to fork out about $5 to download iMovie to give the budding film-maker in you a chance.
Love: Great colours, sharp images
Hate: HDR isn't always effective
Rs 34,500 (16GB), Rs 40,900 (32GB)
Nokia N8
More is better. It's probably what the Finnish designers had in mind when integrating a whopping 12-megger in the Nokia N8. The company's erstwhile flagship product (dethroned by the E7) might have received a lot of flak for the sluggish UI, but the camera was definitely one to behold. The clicker, being the company's first 12-megger, did not disappoint by any measure. The Xenon flash lights up portraits quite nicely and the trademark Carl Zeiss optics retained amazing colour and sharpness. The camera comes with a variety of scene modes, and gives you manual options to adjust ISO, White Balance, Exposure, Contrast and Sharpness. For those of you who are fans of capturing everything in motion right on their handset, the camera is also capable of taking great videos in 720p (25 fps) though the Xenon flash is rendered useless in this mode.
Love: 12-meg sensor, fun Photo/Video editor
Hate: Inadequate zoom (2x for stills, 3x zoom for videos)
Rs 26,259
HTC Incredible S
The HTC Inspire 4G, the latest from the Taiwanese manufacturer, has reviewers abroad gushing over its 8-meg clicker. However, back home, we only have the latest Desire Z and Incredible S to contend with. While we tested the former and got great results with its 5-megger, the latter easily trumps Desire Z's dark-room skills. It's natural to expect better photos with the 8-megger in the Incredible S. You have the usual bunch of settings that comes with HTC Sense - vignette, depth of field, distortion, white balance, colour saturation and exposure among others. You can tap-to-focus during stills as well as videos, which you can record in 720p. The clicker on the Incredible S also scores a point for its front-facing camera, a feature lacking in the Desire Z, but loses some as it won't let you make video calls until you upgrade to Android 2.3. The dual-LED make for decent pictures even at night.
Love: Dual LED flash, sharp, colourful pictures
Hate: Lacks dedicated macro mode
Rs 28,900
LG Optimus 2X
The world's first smartphone to run on a dual-core processor, the LG Optimus 2X, also has a hefty 8-megger to add to its laurels. Images were super-sharp even when shot from a distance with colours not exactly jumping out of the screen but just a slightly-subdued version of the real-life counterpart. The camera has a very simple interface, geo-tagging, digital image stabilisation and the token bunch of features one can expect. However, features like Face tracking, image stabilisation and shot modes like continuous, smile, out-of-focus, beauty, panorama, stitch and the like won't be available when you are shooting with the front camera. You have a 1.3-meg front-facing cam for video calls and not-so-flattering self-portraits. Videos can be recorded at a full-HD resolution and with an expandable memory up to 32GB, you can shoot all you want.
Love: Sharp images, lots of in-menu options
Hate: Colours not too vivid, minimal post-processing software
Rs 30,000
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