T-Mobile Dash Cell Phone Review - Imaging
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 22, 2007 Comment on this |
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Resolution (1.22)
To test the resolution of the images captured by the T-Mobile Dash’s camera we took several pictures of an industry standard resolution chart and then ran it through our Imatest software. This measures how many black and white lines the camera could discern before they started to blur together (a measure Imatest calls line widths per picture height, or lw/ph).
The T-Mobile Dash scored 541.5 lw/ph of horizontal resolution and 586.2 lw/ph of horizontal resolution. This is a poor score for a phone, putting the Dash in the same class as the Motorola Q and Razr V3m. By comparison a phone like the Treo 750 was able to resolve over 50% more lines, even though both phones have a 1.3 megapixel camera.
Compared to an entry level digital camera the Dash fares even worse; the Pentax Optio M20, for example, received scores of 1682 LW/PH horizontally and 1620 LW/PH vertically. We score resolution slightly differently to our sister site digticalcamerainfo.com, so the Dash earned a resolution score of 1.22. If we were to score resolution the same as digitialcamerainfo.com, it would have earned a score of 0.37. That should underline how poor the camera on the Dash is, and how much worse cell phone cameras are in general than dedicated still cameras.
Color (5.41)
To test colors on the T-Mobile Dash we took pictures of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart, which displays 24 different colors. We then ran the photos through the Imatest software, which compares the camera’s produced colors to the chart’s colors.
Imatest produces this chart that shows the original colors in the small vertical rectangle, the adjusted colors in the middle rectangle and the original captures colors in the outer square. Further analysis is provided by the color analysis chart that Imatest produces. On this chart, the circles represent the colors that the camera captured, while the squares represent where the images should be on this color gamut chart. The longer the lines between them, the more inaccurate the colors are.
The T-Mobile Dash did a good job of reproducing colors, roughly equivalent to the Sanyo M1 2 megapixel phone. As you can see from the charts above the Dash had the most trouble reproducing yellows. There was some movement from the ideal in almost all colors. The Dash did not do as well as the Treo 700p, which was very good at reproducing colors.
Noise (1.26)
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.
The Dash did very well in our Noise test; with only the Treo 750 amongst phones we have tested posting a better score. The Dash was helped by a relatively low noise score at 60 lux.
Live Preview (7.5)
The live preview of the camera image on the Dash is good: it uses the full resolution of the screen, with a series of icons around the edge of the screen indicating the various features (such as exposure compensation, white balance mode, etc). It looks more like a dedicated digital camera than a cell phone, and that’s a good thing: it provides the information a photographer needs and gives a good preview of the image at the same time. The preview image is a little jittery, though: if you pan the cell phone rapidly, the image breaks up somewhat.
Unlocked Standby to First Shot (4.0)
For this test, we look at how long it takes to snap an image with the camera turned off, simulating a situation where you see a celebrity walking down the street naked, and want to snap a picture to sell to the tabloids. We found that the dash took an average of 5 seconds to go from standby to pressing the shutter using the dedicated camera button on the bottom right of the keyboard. That’s not too bad, but it is a little slower than both the Razr and the Q, which both took 4 seconds. That extra second could mean the difference between a shot of a celebrities’ face or their unrecognizable pimply backside.
Shot to Shot Time (9.38)
The burst mode of the Dash is activated by putting the camera into sports mode, where you can set the camera to capture three or five images with a single press of the shutter at any of three speeds: fast, medium or slow. The fast mode captured five images in 1.6 seconds, a pretty fast capture rate for a cell phone of 3.125 frames a second; enough to capture a sports pass, and about the same size as most of the other cell phones we’ve looked at (such as the Q and the Treo 700p). However, this mode does restrict the image size to 640 by 480 pixels, so don’t expect the images to look that good when you capture them.
Shutter to Shot Time (6.67)
We measured the shutter to shot speed (the time difference between pressing the shutter and the image being captured) by taking a photo of a stopwatch and measuring the time difference between when we pressed the button and the captured time. For the Dash, we measured this at 0.3 seconds: a little slow, but about average for a cell phone.
Interface (6.0)
Photo Album Software Internal (2.0)
The photo album software in the Dash is extremely basic: although T-Mobile has customized some of the software on the device, the photo album is the standard Windows Mobile program. This only provides the barebones features: you can play slideshows of images, but you can’t otherwise organize them.
Manual Control (2.0)
There are no true manual controls on the Dash camera: you can’t set the shutter speed or aperture directly, and controls such as the white balance setting restrict you to pre-defined presets. This is a bit of a pity; with the camera presenting you with a lot of information in the camera setting sin the preview screen, it would have been nice to be able to jump in and take more control.
Zoom (1.0)
The only zoom on the Dash is a 2x digital zoom that is controlled with the up and down buttons on the directional pad. This has a big hit on image quality, and it is also rather slow to respond, taking about half a second to respond to a button press.
Focus (0.0)
The small lens of the Dash is a fixed-focus model, with a focus range of 60 cm out to infinity. No macro mode is present, so anything closer than a couple of feet won’t be in focus.
Flash (0.0)
No flash is present on the Dash: if you need more light, you have to add it yourself. Other similar cell phones (such as the Q) at least provide a basic LED light flash, which can be useful if you find yourself taking photos in dark places.
Metering (2.0)
There are no options for metering beyond the basic averaging mode that the Dash uses by default. This means that there is no way to adjust how the camera measures the light coming into the camera, so pictures taken against a bright background (such as a sunny sky) probably won’t come out correctly.
White Balance (0.0)
The Dash camera provides five choices for white balance: an auto mode and four presets (Daylight, Night, Incandescent, Florescent). That’s enough for most situations (and most users probably won’t ever take it off Auto), but we would have liked to see an evaluative white balance mode, which can judge the right white balance for a particular lighting situation.
Image Handling (4.0)
The T-Mobile Dash allows you to edit images using the Picture & Videos software on the device. You can crop images, rotate them and apply a general auto-correct. Although none of these options is exceptionally advanced, they are more than most phones offer.
Video
Overall Video Score (2.0)
The T-Mobile Dash is capable of recording video at two resolutions, 128 x 96 and 176 x 144. We captured a video at the higher resolution and compared it to video taken by other phones. As you would expect we were not impressed by the videos taken by the Dash. Viewed full screen on a computer monitor it was very fuzzy and did not compare well with videos taken on other phones at 352 x 288.
Video Resolution (2.04)
Only two options for the size of the captured videos are offered: 128 x 96 and 176 x 144. We tested the resolution of the captured video by capturing a sequence of our video resolution chart, then saving still frames from this and running them through ImaTest. This produces the same lw/ph measure that it does for still images, and with the Dash capturing low resolution video, it was not surprising that the video didn’t have much in the way of resolution: just 144 lw/ph vertical and 141.8 lw/ph horizontal.
Video Compression (6.0)
Three options for the video capture format are available: MPEG-4, Motion JPEG and H.263. That’s a good selection: many cell phones only offer one or two, and the MPEG-4 format provides good image quality in small video files.
Interface (6.0)
The interface of the video capture program looks much the same as the still image capture: information on the current camera settings are shown around the screen edge, while the preview is in the center. The preview is significantly smaller than the still image capture, though, reflecting the lower resolution of the captured images against their still cousins.
Manual Control (0.0)
The video mode has the same lack of manual controls as the still image mode: you can’t directly set shutter speed, aperture or other settings.
Zoom (2.0)
The same 2x digital zoom that we found in the still imaging mode is present in the video mode, but this can’t be used while recording. And only two settings are available: 1x and 2x. You can’t use the imbetween settings like you can with the still imaging
Editing (0.0)
Videos can’t be edited on the dash: all you can do is play them back and delete them if they are too embarrassing.
Modes (2.0)
There are only two video modes: normal video shooting and a video messaging mode that is designed for sending video messages as MMS messages.
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