Let me tell you about what Motorola has going on with their two latest devices, the DROID 3 and the PHOTON 4G. More specifically let me tell you in text what’s going on with the PHOTON 4G because I’ve already recorded a video of what’s going on with the camera on the DROID 3 [full review available here on Android Community] and you can see that below for yourself. Both cameras on these mobile devices are essentially the same, slight details moved around between the two but the same new elements in place. On the Photon 4G, which you can see a full review of early this morning both on Android Community and SlashGear, there are three pieces of new functionality, two of which are utterly awesome, that make its camera unique.
The first of three new features is a mute button – right there on the screen for when you’re recording film and you want to stop your sound recording for as long as you like. Ever been at an event like a rocket launching and the sound is so deafening that your microphone would never be able to pick up anything distinguishable anyway? Tap that mute button and you’re good to go. Next is the lamp. Just as easy as it is to tap the mute button, you can tap the lamp button and your two LED lights on the back of your device will be lit up as long as you like.
This means that the lights on the back of your device that are normally reserved for flashing during a photo (or lamping if you’ve got a lamp app outside the camera) will now be able to be used as a flashlight inside your recording of a video. Finally, there’s a manual digital zoom. This isn’t especially helpful as zooming in this way only serves to pull your same sized screen off the viewer and not technically zooming at all, and that’s completely lame save for you WANTING to do such a strange thing, but it SEEMS cool anyway.
And that’s just the beginning! Check out how these elements work aside the new photo gallery on the DROID 3 in this demo video:
[vms d20e6fe27748b5b37250]
Then check out this example video recording from the DROID 3:
Then check out this example video from the PHOTON 4G:
Pretty awesome!
HTC Sensation also has these features except for the mute button.
Volume rocker on the Sensation also doubles as a Zoom in/out, which is awesome. It also allows you to reset the focus, zoom in/out, and turn on/off the flash WHILE recording, something that my old Nexus One wasn’t able to do(I think?).
what phone have you had that took video and couldn’t use the led for video light? welcome to 2006.
the video quality is really good, its color reproduction is great & detailed without any noise or artifacts. very smooth to, i see that most people want the option of 1080p recording but i dont think its anything more than a gimmick right now. the hardware isnt able to handle the video recording as good & smooth as it does 720p. although i do wish that the front camera was at least 1.3mp’s but in reality the 0.3mp front camera is very detailed with good color, just not high res. i really like this phone, but i have to see if the evo 3D’s dual core cpu can compete or if what they say about the asynchronous setup is all crap,