AT&T Fuze Cell Phone Review - Imaging

The Fuze did not post good imaging results as we'd expected given how well its sibling, the Touch Diamond, did with its identical camera specs. We're particularly disappointed with its always-fuzzy live preview and overall poor video quality. Fortunately, its decent photo album software and camera interface make up for all of this a little bit.

Resolution (4.74)
The Fuze posted less impressive still image resolution results than we were expecting based on our experience with the HTC Touch Diamond that's also made by HTC and also possesses a 3.2-megapixel camera with an auto-focus lens.

A picture of the resolution chart taken with the Fuze

To evaluate a camera's resolution, we set the phone's camera to its highest quality and resolution settings and then take pictures of an industry-standard resolution chart with it. We then run the resulting images through the Imatest image analysis software. This software analyzes the pictures to measure the point at which black and white lines lose definition and begin to blur into each other, expressed in line widths per picture height (lw/ph) on the horizontal and vertical. As with most things we measure, higher numbers mean better resolution. The Fuze was able to resolve 1033 lw/ph horizontally and 979 lw/ph vertically, measurably less than the HTC Touch Diamond with comparable camera specs and well below the top scorer in this area, the Nokia N96.

Cell Phone	AT&T Fuze	Nokia N96	Blackberry Storm
Score	4.74	8.81	2.65
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1033 / 979	1408 / 1204	1029 / 826
Image of Resolution Chart

Cell Phone	T-Mobile G1	HTC Touch Diamond	Apple iPhone 3G
Score	4.04	6.54	3.33
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	954 / 962	1213 / 1214	866 / 897
Image of Resolution Chart

Color (5.13)
The Fuze posted decent color performance, putting it behind only the Nokia N96 in this test. It's a bit surprising that the Fuze's performance exceeds that of the Touch Diamond here, but we'll take what we can get given its poorer still image resolution performance.

We use another industry-standard chart, the GretagMacbeth chart, to evaluate a camera's color accuracy. We take pictures of the chart with the phone's camera and run the resulting images through the Imatest software which then provides data on how closely the camera reproduced the chart's colors. The data comes in the form of 2 charts - the first is a view of the GretagMacbeth chart and gives a visual demonstration of what the camera captured. In this chart, the smallest rectangle shows the actual "correct" color, the largest rectangle shows what the camera captured, and the last interior rectangle shows what the camera should have captured with correction for lighting.

The color chart showing lighting-corrected color

Imatest also generates a color error chart to display graphically how accurate the camera was in capturing color. In this chart, the squares indicate what the ideal color capture would be and the circles show how the camera captured that particular color. The line connecting each square and circle represents how accurately the camera captured the color - the longer the line, the less accurate the camera was. The chart also shows the level of saturation for each color captured by the camera - if the circles are closer to the center of the chart than the squares, the camera is capturing under-saturated color. If the squares are closer to the center of the chart than the circles, the camera is capturing over-saturated colors.

The Fuze's color error chart

As you can see in the Fuze's color error chart, the lines connecting the circles to the squares in the greens, yellows, and oranges are quite long, indicating that the Fuze had difficulty capturing these colors accurately. For the most part, the circles are closer to the center of the chart, showing that the Fuze captures under-saturated color across most of the color spectrum. 

Cell Phone	AT&T Fuze	Nokia N96	Blackberry Storm
Score	5.13	6.12	3.30
Color Checker Chart

Cell Phone	T-Mobile G1	HTC Touch Diamond	Apple iPhone 3G
Score	2.56	4.08	3.90
Color Checker Chart

Noise (1.20)
Most cell phone cameras perform poorly in this area, and frankly, we expect them to since they often lack the settings and image processor capabilities to adjust appropriately in low-light conditions. The Fuze lives up to our expectations here with performance on par with all of our comparison phones, which is not great to begin with at all. The bottom line is that you shouldn't count on the Fuze's, or just about any other cell phone's, camera to capture good images in low-light conditions.

To test noise, we use the phone's camera to take pictures of the GretagMacbeth color chart at various lighting levels ranging from the equivalent of bright daylight down to candle light. Noise is more prevalent in low-light situations since any capturing errors in the image sensor can produce signals greater or less than what is actually present in the image being captured, resulting in graininess and inaccurate color. The resulting images from the various lighting levels are run through the Imatest software, which evaluates noise consistency through the different lighting levels.

Live Preview (4.0)
As you'd expect, the Fuze's live preview is very similar to that of the HTC Touch Diamond. It takes up the entire screen and tapping on it brings up a zoom bar on the left, the number of pictures that can be saved to the remaining storage space in the top right, and menu shortcuts at the bottom. The live preview doesn't quite show you exactly what will be captured since images will show a bit more at the bottom than you had framed when you took the shot.

The still image live preview

The biggest issue we have with the Fuze's live preview is the fact that it's always out of focus until you go to capture a shot, unlike the HTC Touch Diamond's live preview. So, as you pan around to frame up a picture, it's constantly fuzzy, and let's not even mention how it handles fast motion in this state. The default shooting mode is "Touch and Press" meaning that you first touch the D-pad's select button to auto-focus, and then press it fully to take the shot. This is fine, but we'd rather that the camera do something to keep the live preview in focus all the time, like the Touch Diamond and just about every other camera with an auto-focus lens that we've reviewed. Changing the shooting mode to one of the other 2 options doesn't address this issue.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (2.22)
If you like to capture spontaneous pictures, the Fuze will slow you down a bit, taking longer than every one of our comparison phones to snap a picture starting from the home screen in the unlocked state. In this test, we replicate the act of taking your cell phone out of your pocket specifically to capture a picture, and the Fuze completed this test in an average of 9.02 seconds, a long time compared to the iPhone 3G that accomplished this in an average of 3.35 seconds. With no dedicated camera button, we had to first go to the Photos & Videos pane of the TouchFLO interface and then tap on a tiny camera icon to open the camera application, and then wait for the lens to focus and then capture the shot, all of which takes a fair amount of time. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Shot to Shot Time (0.64)
If you like to take multiple shots in quick succession, you'll be disappointed with the Fuze. In this test, we capture 5 images one right after another of a stopwatch started at the same time the shutter button was pressed for the first shot, and calculate frames per second from the time shown on the stopwatch in the last image. We turn off any post-capture review setting to speed up the process. If a burst mode is available - which is not the case with the Fuze - we enable it. The Fuze captured 0.214 frames per second in this test, making it a little bit slower than the Touch Diamond and far slower than the Nokia N96 with its fancy burst mode that managed 1.42 frames per second. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Shutter to Shot Time (1.15)
If you are around kids, pets, or other fast-moving objects, you'll want a camera that will capture an image as soon as possible after you press the capture button. The Fuze's shutter is somewhat slow, but this is not uncommon for cell phones. It took an average of 1.74 seconds for an image to be captured after the shutter button was pressed. With its auto-focus lens that cannot be de-activated, it takes a little bit of time to get the image in focus first before the image is captured. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Interface (6.0)
When you first open the camera application, you're presented with the live preview in full screen with no menu options - these only appear when you tap on the screen, after which you'll see a zoom bar on the left side, the number of pictures that can be saved to the remaining storage space, and shortcut buttons at the bottom to go to the photo album, change the shooting mode, and go to the settings.

The still image main menu

The settings menu offers access to change the flash mode, select a white balance preset, adjust the brightness, turn on the self timer, and access additional settings. These additional settings offer control over the review period, resolution, picture quality, and more. As we found in the Touch Diamond, navigating through the multiple pages of settings can be a bit of a chore, combined with the an interface that we still find to be quite laggy and often frustrating to use. The Fuze pleases us no more and no less than the Touch Diamond in this area.

The Advanced menu tab

Photo Album Software Internal (8.0)
You can access the Fuze's photo album through the TouchFLO interface, scrolling from the home scree to the Photos and Videos tab. Here, you can flick up and down to see captured images flip up an down your screen with a cute animation. Unfortunately, the lag we see elsewhere is here as well, and flicking around can be an unpleasant proposition.

The Photos & Videos tab in the TouchFLO interface

The left virtual soft menu key brings you to the photo album software proper where all items are shown in a thumbnail view. The Menu shortcut offers the option to create a slideshow, send photos via email or MMS, save it to a contact, and more.

The main photo album view

Tapping on a thumbnail of a picture opens it in full-screen view, switching according to the phone's orientation accordingly. You can view its properties and rename a photo through the menu in this view. The touch-sensitive area around the D-pad's center select button works here to zoom in and out as you move your finger clockwise or counter-clockwise around it.

The photo album main menu

There's not much more to the Fuze's photo album software - it's straightforward to navigate with not a lot to confuse you.

Manual Control (0.0)
The Fuze's camera offers no manual control over aperture priority, shutter priority, etc.

Zoom (1.0)
The Fuze offers digital zoom at varying levels depending on the capture mode and selected resolution. When you're capturing 3-megapixel still images, the maximum zoom level is 2x, but this increases to 4x if you select the lowest still image resolution setting, 320 x 240. When capturing video, the maximum zoom level is 1.5x no matter what resolution you've selected. Digital zoom only crops and enlarges a section of the framed image, greatly decreasing the quality of the image, and we only award 1 point for digital zoom regardless of the maximum level available.

Focus (5.0)
The Fuze has an auto-focus lens, earning it a standard 5 points in this area. It is not possible to adjust the focus manually.

The Fuze's camera & flash

Flash (3.0)
The Fuze has a single LED light to assist image capture in low-light conditions. It's not a proper flash that only illuminates briefly as you're taking a picture - instead, once you turn it on, it stays on to illuminate the scene for a few meager feet, if that. While it's better than no light at all, it's poor compared to the dual-LED flash of the N96 that acts like a proper flash, lighting as the shutter activates.

Metering (4.0)
The 3rd pane of the camera's Advanced settings menu offers 2 meter mode options - center area or average. Metering determines how light is judged to determine the appropriate exposure level. We don't often see these settings in cell phones and the Fuze earns 4 points here for what it does offer.

White Balance (2.0)
The Fuze's camera settings provides white balance presets for sunlight, night, incandescent, and fluorescent lighting, in addition to a default automatic setting, which is about the most we see except in camera feature phones that usually offer a few more options.

Image Handling (2.0)
The Fuze is behind the ball in this area compared to its sibling, the Touch Diamond, offering no image editing features aside from the ability to rename photos, which is disappointing to say the least. If you want to crop your images, add some special effects, or anything else before you send them along in an email or MMS, you'll need to export them to your computer first to make the changes.

Video Quality (1.0)
To evaluate video quality, we record a video using the phone's camera and transfer it to a computer to view it on a large screen and compare it to videos of the same scene taken with other cell phones. The Fuze provided us with one of the worst video viewing experiences ever, showing significant pixelation and eye-watering blurriness with just about any movement. Don't expect to be able to use videos captured with the Fuze to entertain others on a TV - they're best for sending via MMS where the recipient will view them on a small screen to minimize the potential for bleeding eyes.

Video Resolution (5.08)
In terms of video resolution, the Fuze performs slightly above average, resolving 230 lw/ph horizontally and 221 lw/ph vertically. We perform this test much in the same way we perform the still image resolution tests, but using images extracted from recorded video, of course. We'd never expect video from a cell phone to compete with anything that could come from even a low-end camcorder, but it will be more than sufficient for MMS videos.

Video Compression (4.0)
The Fuze records video in 3GP format using the MPEG4 or H.263 codecs.

Interface (6.0)
Video and still image capture are done through the same interface on the Fuze, with similar features and menu options available. As in the still image capture mode, the live preview is out of focus until you activate the auto-focus. It will only stay focused if you start capturing video, which can be annoying when you're trying to frame up what you want to shoot. Digital zoom is always at 1x, unless you choose to increase it, when recording video no matter what resolution you've selected. In the end, video capture is easy on the Fuze and the interface doesn't make things hard at all.

The video capture live preview

Manual Control (0.0)
There are no manual controls for video capture on the Fuze.

Zoom (1.0)
The maximum digital zoom level available for video capture at any resolution is 1.5x, earning it 1 point in this area under our scoring guide.

Editing (0.0)
As with still imaging, there are, disappointingly, no video editing options available on the Fuze.

Modes (6.0)
When recording video, you can apply a grayscale, sepia, or negative effect to give your video a different look. The center area and average metering modes are available here, just as they were in still image capture mode. When choosing a capture mode, there is a separate MMS Video capture mode available to ensure you capture videos with a small enough size to be sent as an MMS. The Fuze offers nothing more beyond this to aid in your video recording efforts.

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