The Treo 680 review – the Treo 680’s camera

The Treo 600 was often ridiculed for its bad camera. And indeed, the 600′s VGA camera performed badly in low-light situations and generally was pretty insensitive and made blueish pictures. The Treo 680 still has a VGA camera – but the image quality is said to have been improved significantly…is this so?

When one turns the two Treos around, one immediately sees that the Treo 680 has a self-portrait mirror. Also, the camera was moved down to the middle of the device(bad idea IMHO – fingers obstruct it more easily):

Outdoors, the Treo 600 always performed decently. Nevertheless, the 680′s camera creates much sharper, although a bit pixelated images(680 on the left, click for unmodified versions):

The higher dynamic range of the Treo 680′s digital camera becomes evident when a window is in the image(680 on the left):

The Treo 680′s higher sensitivity in low-light situations is shown by the images below. The top row was shot in dim light, the bottom row in very dim light(680 on the left):

The Treo 680 has a 2x digital zoom. The pictures below were made out of a window, the one on the right has had digital zoom enabled:

Last but not least, here are a few photos of my girlfriend’s pot plant which couldn’t get away as I approached it with the Treos(approx. 30cm distance, 10cm distance):

Overall, the Palm Treo 680 still can’t replace a digital camera – but that’s not what its invented for. Other phones like a Nokia N71 deliver far better images, and my old Siemens SX1 was a bit better, too. Nevertheless, the Treo 680′s VGA camera delivers solid(although a bit pixelated) images for on-screen viewing in all lighting conditions – and thats all I need from a mobile phone. The amazing sensitivity more than compensates for the lack of a flash BTW – the 680 works really really well at low lights(much better than SX1).

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