Camera

The VX8700's camera and camcorder that sits above the rectangular external display takes sharp photos that usually have a good balance of light. At 2.0-megapixels, the lens is a step up from the VX8600's 1.3-megapixels. The design, however, makes it easy for fingers to come too close to the camera lens, distorting image quality.

The camera certainly should be the focus of the VX8700, considering all the controls, many of which are similar to functions on point-and-shoot digital cameras currently on the market. Resolution can be adjusted to four sizes, ranging from 1600 x 1200 px to 320 x 240 px, and the camera can zoom up to 2x at three of those levels. Video quality can be selected at 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 px.

The camera has five options for White Balance: Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Fluorescent and Glow. Color Effects can also be selected from the choices of Normal, Negative, Aqua, Sepia and Black and White. Users can set the Shutter Sound, including with the fun but eventually annoying "Say Cheese." The Self-Timer has settings for 3, 5, or 10 seconds, and users have the choice of turning on Night Mode.

Also, photos can be edited using simple post-production tools such as Zoom, Rotate and Crop. Once the camera has been turned on using the button on the lower right side of the phone, users can go from still photos to video by simply holding down the button.

The VX8700 can record up to 30 seconds of video to send, or 1 hour if it is saved. Both video and still photos can be set as wallpaper on the phone. Users can stream and download VCAST video clips.

The video quality is generally good, although nowhere near the clarity of still photos. Background sounds sometimes came out gargled. Photos taken with the VX8700 were extremely sharp in the right light, which seems to be plenty of natural light but not bright, direct sunlight. The camera does have a hard time in some dark interiors.

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