LG Prada Review - Imaging

Alfredo Padilla
Published on June 25, 2007 Comment on this

Resolution (4.68)
To test the resolution of still photos taken by the LG Prada we took a series of photos of an industry standard resolution chart. We then run these photos through Imatest, a program that produces a score called line widths per pixel height (lw/ph). This is a measure of how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned by the camera.

The LG Prada's 2 megapixel auto-focus camera did well in our resolution test, able to discern 1026 lw/ph horizontal and 1131 lw/ph vertical. This is better than the Sanyo M1, another 2 megapixel auto-focus camera, which scored 859.9 lw/ph horizontal and 773.4 lw/ph vertical. It also did better than the Nokia N73, which has a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. The N73 scored 946.4 lw/ph horizontal and 1126 lw/ph vertical. The Prada's camera actually scored better than any other phone we have tested to date except the Nokia N95, which has a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera. We were very pleased with the Prada's resolution score, for a phone anyways. We score resolution a little differently than our sister site digitalcamerainfo.com. If the Prada had been scored for that site it would have received a terrible 1.4, but for a cell phone, it scored pretty well.

Color (5.66)
To test color we take a series of photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart. We run the resulting photos through Imatest, which compares the camera's captured colors to each of the 24 original colors on the chart. Imatest produces the chart below, which shows the original colors in the small vertical rectangle, the adjusted colors in the middle rectangle and the original capture colors in the outer square.

Imatest also produces a color analysis chart, seen below. On this chart the circles represent the colors taken by the camera while the squares represent where the colors should be. The longer the line between the two, the worse the color reproduction. As you can see the LG Prada does a reasonable job of reproducing colors, with the biggest problem coming in the yellows, where color is under-saturated. Overall the Prada did about the same in color reproduction as the Sanyo M1 and slightly better than the Nokia N73. The Helio Ocean was a little better than the Prada.

Noise (1.13)
To test noise we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels, ranging from as bright as a sunny day to candlelight. We run these photos through the Imatest software and measure noise at each lighting level. These scores are then combined into an overall score. The Prada actually performed fairly well at all lighting levels except the lowest. At this level the Prada performed a little below average, which pushes down it's overall score. The result is that like many cameras on mobile phones you shouldn't expect very good quality when taking photos in dark locations.

Live Preview (8.5)

The LG Prada uses the entire 3 inch display for the live preview, with the camera held in landscape orientation. There are only a handful of icons that overlay the display on the left, which means that you gain the benefit of a live preview as large or larger than most regular cameras. We found that the display did a solid job of reproducing the final picture, with little pixellation. We did find however that colors were a little off, with final colors slightly more saturated than the displayed colors. The live preview is as good as that found on the Nokia N95 or T-Mobile Wing, which also have a large display for live preview.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (2.6)
Unlocked standby to first shot is a measure of how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we're able to capture a photo. The LG Prada took 7.7 seconds to launch the camera interface and take a photo. This is not a very good time, even for a phone that has the excuse of an auto-focus camera like the Prada. The Nokia N95, which also has an auto-focus camera, took only 6.5 seconds to complete this test. Phones with fixed focus lenses take significantly less time, for example the LG Chocolate took only 2.04 seconds. We found that it took quite awhile for the Prada's auto-focus lens to lock focus and take a photo. The camera interface actually launched fairly quickly.

Shot to Shot Time (1.65)
Shot to shot time is a measure of how long it takes the phone's camera to take a series of photos. When possible we use the camera's burst mode. The LG Prada only has a burst mode at the two lowest capture resolutions: 640 x 480 and 320 x 240. This means that any photos you capture using burst mode won't be very high resolution. Using the 640 x 480 resolution we used burst mode to take three photos in quick succession. The Prada was able to take three photos in 5.47 seconds. This works out to .55 frames per second. This is not a good time for a phone camera, especially considering the resolution you are giving up. The T-Mobile Wing was able to take full sized 2 megapixel photos at a rate of 2.3 frames per second. It is slightly better than the Nokia N95's .42 frames per second. We were not impressed with the LG Prada's shot to shot time; if you are looking to take pictures in quick sucession, then look elsewhere.

Shutter to Shot Time (0.56)
Shutter to shot time is a measure of how long it takes for the camera to actually capture a photo after you have depressed the shutter key. The LG Prada took 3.6 seconds to capture a photo once you've hit the capture buttons. This is a very long time, even for a phone with an auto-focus lens like the Prada. It is more than three times as long as the Nokia N95, which took only a single second to capture a photo after you hit the shutter button. Phones with fixed focus lenses take even less time, the LG Chocolate took only .28 seconds. The extremely slow shutter to shot time for the Prada means that you will need to make sure that your shots are posed. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to capture a spur of the moment shot given the Prada's performance in this test.

Interface (6.5)

The LG Prada's camera interface is obviously designed around its touch screen interface. By default the screen shows only six icons along the left, plus a small indicator for how much memory you have left in the lower right. Tapping on the screen brings up additional options, including a brightness control, button to access settings and another to switch to video camera mode. When you hit the settings buttons 12 icons appear on the right side of the screen to control various settings. When an icon is tapped the options for it appear on the left side of the screen. Although this is generally a straightforward system, it is marred by the fact that when you hit OK to confirm a selection it takes you back to the camera interface. This means that if you have several settings to change you will need to re-enter the settings screen to change each one. This is the only major issue we had with the interface however, which is otherwise easy to use and well designed.

Photo Album Software Internal (3.0)

The photo album software on the Prada is part of it's "My stuff" program. It is fairly simple, with photos divided into two tabs, one for internal memory and the other for external. In each tab photos are organized into thumbnails, three columns wide. We did find that the thumbnails were a little slow to load. When a photo is opened it is enlarged to take up the middle third of the screen in portrait orientation. You can view photos in a slideshow, although there are no advanced controls. You can also view photos in "full screen" mode, which shifts the orientation to landscape and fills the screen with the photo. You can then move left and right by tapping the screen to reveal arrow keys and tapping in the desired direction. We found the album software to be about the same as a low end phone, which isn't very impressive given that the Prada goes for over $500 unlocked.

Manual Control (0.0)
The LG Prada does not include any manual controls. For such an expensive device we would at least liked to have seen features that could make shooting easier, such as scene modes, much less things like manual white balance.

Zoom (1.0)
The LG Prada has a digital zoom, however it is only available when you are not in the maximum resolution mode. This makes a feature that is of limited utility even more useless.

Focus (5.0)
The LG Prada has a basic auto-focus lens as found on many higher end camera phones nowadays. We were pleased to see the auto-focus lens because it produces better photos than fixed focus lenses. It does however slow down the camera, and in the Prada's case this slowing is particularly noticeable.

Flash (3.0)
The LG Prada comes with a simple LED flash that is functional out to a range of two or three feet. Beyond this it won't help you very much.

Metering (4.0)
We were pleased to see that the LG Prada had basic metering controls. You can choose between average and center weighted metering. There are also exposure compensation controls. The combination of these two makes the Prada one of the better phones we've seen in terms of metering options. For those who don't know, metering allows you to control from which point or points light in the scene is judged. It has been a standard feature on almost all cameras for awhile now, and the Prada makes the second phone that we've seen true metering controls on, the other being the T-Mobile Wing.

White Balance (2.0)
The LG Prada provides you with four white balance presets: tungsten, flourescent, daylight and cloudy. This is fast becoming a standard feature on camera phones and we would have been surprised to see its lack.

Image Handling (2.0)

The LG Prada has limited image handling options. You can rename photos and rotate images, but more advanced items like cropping or color adjustment are beyond this phone. As with the album software, for a phone that goes for over $500 we expected better.

Video

Overall Video Score (5.0)

The quality of video captured by the LG Prada left a little to be desired. Despite the WQVGA resolution (400 x 240), which is higher than most phones, we saw quite a bit of pixelation and granularity in the video. It is certainly better than the 176 x 144 resolution video capture by the LG Chocolate, but leaves something to be desired when compared to the 352 x 288 resolution video captured by the Nokia N75 or N73. It is obviously nowhere near the VGA quality video captured by the Nokia N95.

Video Resolution (10.14)
To measure video resolution we take video of the same industry standard resolution chart we use for still resolution. We then run frames from that video through the Imatest software to again produce line widths per pixel height (lw/ph) scores. This score is a measure of how many alternating white and black lines can be discerned by the camera. We found that the LG Prada did very well in this test, with a score of 253.7 lw/ph horizontal and 399.6 lw/ph vertical. This is almost as good as the Nokia N75, which scored 307.1 lw/ph horizontal and 346.3 lw/ph vertical. Only the N75 and Nokia N95 did better in this test than the Prada. Given our mixed impression of the quality of video captured by the Prada we were a little surprised by it's solid video resolution score, however it should be noted that in our overall video score we are able to judge things like how the camera handles panning and movement in the shot, which our resolution score does not cover.

Video Compression (2.0)
The LG Prada captures video in 3GP format with an Mpeg-4 compressor. There are no options to capture video in any other format. This is a little disappointing, we would have liked the option to capture .mp4 video or even .avi as these formats do a better job of retaining video quality.

Interface (6.5)

The video camera interface on the Prada is very similar to the stills camera. By default you are shown only a few icons along the left. Tapping on the screen will bring up more controls, including brightness and zoom. Once in the settings you are able to change eight different options, which appear in a group on the right side of the screen. When activated the interface for that particular option appears on the left. We again ran into the problem where you can only change one option on each trip to the settings, so you will need to re-enter to change multiple options. This annoyance aside, we liked the Prada's interface, the controls were straightforward and easy to use.

Manual Control (0.0)
The LG Prada does not provide users with any manual controls for video capture.

Zoom (1.0)
The video camera on the Prada has a digital zoom that, unlike the stills camera, is available in all resolution modes. Of course digital zoom is of limited utility because all it does is crop and resize what you're seeing. At the lower resolutions of video capture this quickly makes for pixelated, low quality videos.

Editing (0.0)
There LG Prada does not include any video editing features. As with the scarcity of still editing features we wish for more from a handset as expensive as the Prada.

Modes (6.0)
The Prada actually has a decent selection of video modes. In addition to white balance settings for daylight or cloudy situations the video camera also includes the same two metering options that the stills camera has: overall and center weighted. Finally there is also a preset for MMS video. The presence of the metering options in particular is something we have only rarely seen on phones.

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