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The budget nature of the Samsung Genio QWERTY also becomes apparent when you turn to the camera. It's a low-key affair compared to some of Samsung's recent cameraphone efforts; it does the shooting essentials, but the 2-megapixel camera isn't high on quality imaging.
As you might expect from a down-range camera, it lacks autofocus and flash capabilities, so is more for casual fun snap-and-send shots than anything more serious.
The camera fires up in just a couple of seconds, displaying the viewfinder across the width of the landscape display.
You may find that this makes it slightly more intuitive to snap shots using the D-pad control rather than the camera side button.
The user interface is simple to operate, and includes a familiar array of regulation cameraphone settings options and effects to override the auto system.
These include white balance adjustment, multiple shots and mosaic images (which automatically shoot in low res), resolution setting options, night mode, timer, plus colour tinting effects and frames
Image results, though, are lacklustre and lack the level of detail you can get for a few quid more on other cameraphones. Colour balance is reasonable, and shots do look bright with natural colours.
MIXED SCENE: The 2-megapixel fixed focus camera on the Samsung Genio Qwerty is pretty basic – it's okay for snap'n'send images, but offers limited image detail and quality; here images are slightly soft and detail around trees and the sky is imprecise
CLOSE UP: The fixed focus lens means you can't choose the focal point for a shot, so close up images can't be sharply defined
STRONG LIGHT: Even in strong lighting conditions, images can be soft with subdued colour and lacking in detail
LONG RANGE: Longer-range shots aren't crisp, and in moderate lighting detail is poorly defined
MID RANGE: Mid-range shots also suffer from softness and lacklustre colour presentation
BRIGHT COLOUR: You can get okay shots reasonably close to the subject. Here, colour rendition is decent enough
MIXED SCENE: This street scene again shows a slightly subdued and soft image with a lack of definition
ARTIFICIAL LIGHT: For this grade of cameraphone, the autometering system does a reasonable job with artificial light in dark conditions, although without a flash in dark environments image quality is poor
In dark conditions, without a flash the night mode option doesn't offer much of an improvement to low light shooting, boosting gain but adding more noise to shots.
Overall, though, it's a low-grade budget snapper compared to other recent Samsung offerings.
Video shooting quality isn't up to much, with low resolution QCIF (176x144 pixels) recording at 15 frames per second providing basic quality images for even a low cost cameraphone.
