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HTC promised TechRadar it would be making more of an effort with cameras on its phones, and the HTC Hero has come with a 5MP effort, compared to the 3MP snapper stuck to the back of the Magic.
It's often said that more megapixels don't make a better camera in a phone, and that's sorely evident in the HTC Hero. The lack of flash is always going to make it hard to get sharp pictures, but even with good light and the AF working overtime on the camera, even the best efforts came out blurred.
There aren't any other picture taking options on there either, so night mode is out of the question, meaning this is strictly a day time camera.
So essentially the only upgrade on offer was more megapixels - and for some reason it seems to have actually made the photographs slightly worse.
See how the HTC Hero compares to the Olympus SP-565UZ
WASHED OUT: Colours on the HTC Hero look pale and lifeless compared to the Olympus
NOT SO BRIGHT: The cloudy sky and landscape aren't clearly defined with the HTC Hero's camera
INDOOR PROBLEMS: Pictures taken indoors suffer horribly from leaking light and give poor colour reproduction
The video camera is a bit 'standard mobile' as it only records in 352 x 288 resolution, which is far below the iPhone 3GS' VGA 30fps effort. The footage is of average quality, and it's certainly not enough to make you think this could be you only avenue for shooting footage when out and about.
It also takes a few seconds for the video to fire up, meaning that whatever you're looking to catch on camera might have already gone by the time you've taken the phone into camcorder mode and then focused and THEN started recording.
