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Things are a little better with it comes to the cameras. The Microsoft Lumia 550 sports a 5MP rear-facing camera with autofocus and a single LED flash, along with a serviceable 2MP selfie camera.
Images shot with the main camera, using the excellent Windows Camera app, are perfectly respectable for the price point. Detail reproduction is acceptable, as are contrast and saturation.
Microsoft has resisted the temptation to overdo the image smoothing in a bid to reduce noise in photos, a common mistake of smartphone manufacturers, and this means images look a bit more natural than they otherwise might.
The selfie camera captures images that are fine for social media, and the video mode will be perfectly sufficient for blurry Skype sessions.
As for the Windows Camera app itself, it offers something of a neat trick in the shape of a Rich Capture mode, which is essentially Microsoft's version of HDR, but with a twist.
With the mode active, before a photo is taken, the software will analyse the scene, and afterwards will apply effects appropriate to the lighting and so on.
The HDR function itself is a pale shadow of the modes seen in more powerful snappers on more expensive handsets, only merging three exposures rather than up to seven, but it will proved valuable in certain situations.
Meanwhile, having the ability to 'change' the level of flash in a picture by blending two photos, one taken with flash and one without, is a neat party trick.
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