Camera Phone Reviews

LG VX9400

Digital Trends reviews the LG VX9400 and writes, "The camera shutter is actually a bit too fast -- the picture snaps almost as soon as you press the button. This means the camera is still moving slightly while the image is being captured, which results in blurry pictures, especially indoors. Indoor images also are a bit grainy, but with contrast and color on par with pictures from other 1.3 MP cameras. Outdoor pictures are spectacular, with true bright colors and deep contrast. It's focal length is actually longer than the optics of the Samsung u620, meaning you'll get more in the picture standing closer. Getting pictures out of the camera is a challenge. Neither this phone nor the Samsung u620 let you transmit images from the camera to a PC via Bluetooth. Either you'll have to settle for lower resolution MMS or emailed images, or you'll have to pry the microSD card out and use a card reader."

LaptopMag reviews the LG VX9400 and awards it an Editor's Choice. About the phone's camera: "Another area where the VX9400 excels is in camera quality. Images from the VX9400 camera, like its TV playback, exhibited better contrast and truer colors. Plus, LG's optics provide a longer focal length, so you can see more scenery in the viewfinder. However, the VX9400 has a remarkably quick shutter release. This isn't an issue for outdoor shots in bright sunlight, but indoors, when the shutter speed slows to compensate for low available light, the image gets snapped while the phone is still recoiling from you pushing the camera button, resulting in blurry images."

MobileTechReview has a review of the LG VX9400 and writes, "We were pleasantly surprised by the VX9400's 1.3 megapixel camera. LG generally does a good job with cameras and though 1.3MP is now bottom of the barrel, the phone took pleasing shots. Colors were reasonably accurate, noise is acceptable for a camera of this resolution and the shots were fairly clear by fixed focus lens standards. Not bad! The LG did better than the Samsung u620 with more vibrant colors, less white out and better focus. The 2.2" display acts as the camera's viewfinder and you can launch the camera by pressing the dedicated side button. When in portrait mode the viewfinder takes up only a portion of the display. Switch to landscape mode by swiveling the display and it uses the entire screen. The camera can take still photos in JPEG format in 1280x960, 640x480, 320 x 240, 176 x144 and 160x120 resolutions. There's a self timer (3, 5 or 10 seconds), an LED flash (you can turn it off), white balance settings, 3 shutter sounds plus silent, color effects (sepia, black and white, negative), brightness control and selectable spot or average metering (a feature you don't usually see on low end camera modules). You can save photos to a microSD card or internal memory and view them in the photo viewer application."

CNET reviews the LG VX9400 and writes, "The 1.3-megapixel camera takes shots in five resolutions (1,280x960, 640x480, 320x240, 176x144, and 160x120) and offers a nice range of options, including settings for light metering and white balance, a self-timer, three color effects, and four shutter sounds (there's no silent option). It also includes a flash, but we found it useless in low-light settings. The Night mode brightens dark environments, but it's nearly impossible to hold your hand steady enough to get off a clear shot. The camcorder records clips in two resolutions (320x240 and 187x144) with sound and a similar set of video options. Clips meant for multimedia messages are capped at 15 seconds; otherwise you can shoot up to one hour of video with an external memory card. Although the LG VX9400 comes with 60MB of onboard memory, that can quickly fill up if you take advantage of the music and video downloading capabilities. Picture quality was quite good with sharp color resolution and distinct object outlines."

About.com reviews the LG VX9400 and writes, "what about the LG VX9400, the phone? A good one, with some down sides. The speakerphone sometimes sounded echo, but when not using the speakerphone, the LG VX9400 had a great sound quality. ... Other than that, the LG VX9400 has a sturdy design, an average to below average camera, fair battery life and a fine keypad."

IGN reviews the LG VX9400 and writes, "If you're looking for a phone that has a decent camera, you'll want to keep on looking because the 1.3 megapixel camera that the 9400 comes with is mediocre at best. The pictures that you'll take will be blurry for the most part, even if you're holding the camera steady with everything zoomed out as far as possible. If you manage to take a clear picture, the images that you get will turn out fine, but it will be rather seldom that you actually get something that doesn't contain motion blur."