Motorola Q Cell Phone Review - Imaging
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Richard Baguley Published on March 08, 2007 Comment on this |
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The images that the 1.3-megapixel camera on the back of the Q captures are somewhat disappointing. Although we don’t expect cell phones to capture images that look as good as a dedicated still camera, the images captured by the Q are low in resolution, low in color fidelity and low in overall quality; even the occasional photographer will want to consider carrying a dedicated camera alongside the Q for capturing stills that they actually want to keep. Resolution (1.35)
To test the resolution of the cameras on cell phones, we photograph a reference chart and run the captured image through Imatest photo analysis software. This analyzes the image and produces a large number of results, including the line widths per picture height, which indicates how many alternating black and white lines you could capture on an image, and still have all of them be distinguishable (Imatest refers to this as lw/ph for line width per picture height).
For the Motorola Q, this figure was 569 horizontally and 515 vertically, which produces a resolution score of 1.35. Because we don’t expect cell phone cameras to do as well as dedicated digital cameras, our scores are a little higher than our sister site digitalcamerainfo.com; if we were to produce a score the way they do, the Motorola Q would earn a score of 0.4. Compare this with the $319 Canon PowerShot SD40, (which resolved 1708 lines horizontally and 1878 vertically, earning a score of 5.40) and you’ll see why we don’t think it’s time to throw out your dedicated still camera quite yet.
This isn’t helped by the fact that the images are, like many cell phone camera images, rather under sharpened: Imatest produced a figure of 19.2% under sharpening. This indicates that the image sensor is capturing information that isn’t represented in the final image: the processing that the Q does to produce the final image is loosing some fo this information in an attempt to make the pictures look more appealing.
Color (3.13)
We also use Imatest to analyze the color in images captured by the Q by photographing an industry standard Gretag Macbeth color chart. Imatest then analyzes the images, comparing the color of the captured image with the real color of the chart. Imatest produces this chart which shows the true colors on the chart in the small vertical rectangle, the adjusted colors in the middle rectangle and the original captured colors in the outer square.
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Noise (4.27)
We test noise by shooting a variety of images in light conditions ranging from 3000 lux (a bright, sunny day) to 60 lux (about what you would get in a darkened room with a single light), then running the captured images through imatest, which analyzes areas of the image for noise. Like all cell phone cameras, the images from the Q became noisy at the lowest light settings, with the noise becoming a big problem at the 60 lux setting, which is shown above. Low resolution cameras are less prone to noise than their higher resolution cousins, but the Q did show a lot less noise than similar cell phones: it had less noise than both the Razr V3m and the Krazr, both of which have the same resolution cameras.
Live Preview (5.0)
Although the Q has a large, high resolution screen, it doesn’t use it when capturing images or video: even with the camera at the highest capture resolution, the live preview occupies less than half of the screen. The preview is also rather jerky: quickly panning the cell phone turns the image into a blurry mess.
Unlocked Standby to First Shot (5.05)
We found that taking a photo can take a long time: going through the start menu to the photo application, then starting the camera took 8 seconds. That’s way too long: you will miss many a great candid opportunity waiting for the camera program to start. But it is possible to cut this time down: the Windows Mobile 5.0 OS that the Q runs has an interesting feature: it puts a line of icons for commonly used programs at the top of the home page screen for quick access. If you use the camera a lot, the camera application will be added to the list, which makes the process a lot quicker: in this case it took us just 4.1 seconds to go from the home screen to taking a photo. You can also use the photo button (on the bottom row of keys, next to the space bar), but it’s not much quicker: the average standby to first shot time for this was around 4.5 seconds.
Shot to Shot Time (0.9)
Putting the Q into Burst mode takes a sequence of 5 images from one press of the shutter over a period of 17.2 seconds: a rate of just under 0.3 frames per second. That’s at the maximum resolution (the speed increases at lower resolutions); much slower then even the cheapest digital cameras, and way too slow to capture any exciting action sequences. Well, unless you count your pet tortoise walking across the lawn as being exciting, that is.
Shutter to Shot Time (2.0)
We measured the average time between pressing the shutter and the Q capturing the image at 0.5 seconds. That’s a little on the slow side, and could lead to lost shots: when you are photographing fast moving objects like small children or animals, half a second could be the difference between a cute cat picture and a shot of their rear end.
Interface (6.0)
The interface for taking still photos and video on the Q is basic, but functional. Taking photos is pretty straightforward: the center button of the directional pad or the left soft button take the photo, and the right soft button takes you into the menu. From the menu you can switch to shooting video or change settings such as the resolution, white balance mode or flash mode. It’s not difficult to use, but it does involve a lot of button presses. Changing the resolution involves 5 button presses to get the to resolution options, for instance.
Photo Album Software (2.0)
The photo album software in the Q is very basic: you can play slideshows of images, but the only way to organize images is to put them in a folder, then play the slideshow of all of the images in that folder. It isn’t possible to rotate images or apply effects, and there are no built-in image editing features; you have to transfer an image to a PC to edit ir.
Manual Control (0.0)
No manual controls are present for the camera on the Q; there is no way to set the shutter speed, aperture or ISO setting directly.
Zoom (1.0)
The only zoom on the Q is a 6X digital zoom. As usual with digital zooms, using this seriously affects the image quality, as the device creates the zoom effect by enlarging the center of the image. Given the somewhat shaky quality of the images without the digital zoom, it’s best to avoid using it unless you happen to be a fan of blocky, blurry images.
Focus (0)
The lens in the Q is a fixed-focus model; there is no autofocus. Motorola claims that the focus range of the lens is from 60cm (about 24 inches) out to infinity, and our testing would bear this out; anything closer than a couple of feet is out of focus. There is no macro setting, so it wouldn’t work well for closups.
Flash (3.0)
Saying that the Q has a flash is somewhat misleading: the small LED light next to the lens doesn’t flash. Instead, it is either off or constantly on. It’s also rather bright: leave it on for more than a couple of seconds and your subjects will end up seeing spots. You control the “flash” through the flash option of the camera menu, so turning it on or off takes a couple of seconds.
Metering (2.0)
There are no metering modes, so if the averaging metering method that the Q uses to examine the incoming light and decide what settings to use for capturing images picks the wrong settings, you’re out of luck. Although we don’t expect to see the more complex metering modes on cell phones (such as spot metering), it would have been nice to see some basic ways to override the default metering (such as a backlit or sports mode)
White Balance (2.0)
Although the Q is lacking metering mode options, it does have some basic white balance controls. As well as the automatic option, there are five white balance presets: Sunny, Cloudy, Indoor Home, Indoor Office and Night.
Image Handling (2.0)
The image handling features of the Q are very basic: you can’t crop or otherwise edit images. The only thing you can do is to copy or moves files between the memory card and the phone memory or resize them to 640 by 480 for attaching to an email or MMS message.
Video
Overall Video Score (1.0)
We try and make allowances for the limitations of cell phones here at wirelessinfo.com. After all, cell phones are all-on-one devices which capture video alongside the more important business of making phone calls. But more and more, people are using them as their primary devices for capturing still images and video, and frankly, the Q sucks at video. The maximum resolution of video it captures is 176 by 144 pixels, which is lower than even the nastiest video hosting sites offer. While that may be fine for capturing candid moments, don’t expect to do anything more with the video: the image quality and resolution is so low that even an avid YouTube user would turn their nose up in disgust.
Video Resolution (0.98)
The Q captures video at a maximum resolution of 176 by 144, so it’s not surprising that the resolution of the resulting files is pretty low: Imatest measured it at an appalling 65.71 lw/ph horizontally and 144.6 vertical, resulting in a low, low 0.98 video resolution score. By contrast, the $300 Canon Elura 100 MiniDV camcorder captured 538.2 lines horizontally and 259.9 vertically.
Video Compression (2.0)
Videos that are captured by the Q can only be saved as 3GPP2 files at resolutions of 128 by 96, 160 by 120 or 176 by 144. That doesn’t provide a lot of options for increasing the quality of the videos.
Interface (5.0)
The interface for capturing videos is the same as the interface for stills: adequate, but nothing outstanding. The center button on the directional pad or the left soft button start and stop the video capture, and the right soft button allows you to pause the video capture. By default, the maximum video length is 30 seconds, but this can be changed to allow for videos as long as the memory card capacity allows.
Manual controls (2.0)
White balance is the only video control that has anything close to manual control, and that’s a stretch: like the still imaging, it has an automatic setting and five presets. But there is no way to manually set options like shutter speed, gain or aperture.
Zoom (0.0)
There’s no zooming when taking videos: your only option is to moving in closer to the subject yourself. This means it’s not suitable for filming animal documentaries, as getting that close up of the lions feeding could get messy.
Editing (0.0)
Videos can’t be edited on the Q: all you can do is to play them back through Windows Media Player. So if you make a mistake, it’s reshoot time.
Modes (2.0)
There are no video scene modes on the Q; all you get is the options for setting the resolution and the video brightness. Because the video capture resolutions are so low, they are suitable for emailing or sending as MMS messages, but the addition of shooting modes (such as night, sports, etc) would have made the video features of the Q more flexible.
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