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The Alcatel OT-980 is really let down by its camera. The on-paper specs state that the camera shoots stills at two megapixels. Well, yes, that's just two megapixels. And there's no flash.
There is some serious shutter lag too, which means you need to hold steady while you take a shot, and any photo of a moving object is liable to blurring or even – if you are trying to photograph your fast-moving cat for instance – an empty space where the cat was when you framed the photo. Trust me, it happened.
The shot-framing window is small and does not take advantage of all the screen space on offer. And as usual with Android, you can't take a photo till you've got an SD card in position. And no, you don't get a card with the phone.
This is a real oversight, as it basically means you have to pay to use the camera which is ridiculous. Even a 512MB option would have sufficed, but this is a terrible choice.
Without a side launcher button you have to put the camera shortcut icon on a main screen for quick access, but that's really not too much of a trial to be honest. And there is a second shortcut icon for the camcorder should you want to shoot video.
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INDOORS: This indoor shot actually does quite well for lighting and evenness, though the compression of the images is clear in things like shaky lines and hazy colours
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OUTDOORS: If it's quick snaps you are after then the camera is probably okay. This shot is just about passable, but we wouldn't want to use the camera for any photos we want to keep for posterity
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CONTRAST: This image is again reasonable, with colour reproduction surprisingly decent. But the contrast isn't really as good as we'd like, and the minute you look closely at any hard edges or straight lines the compression level of the photo is apparent
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VARIANCE: Here we see how the camera struggles to cope with a lot of variance of light and shade. The foreground is a dull brown mess, while the bright blue sky and the building are much better
