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This is one area where the Xperia X8 is seriously lacking when put up against Sony Ericsson's little Xperia X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro.
The X8's camera spec has been busted down to a three-megapixel model, without flash or autofocus, plus Sony Ericsson has also removed huge chunks of functionality from the Camera app that worked to such good effect in the X10 Mini and Mini Pro.
The camera comes with, er... four options, and they're only simple scene filters. Although, you can obviously switch between video and camera recording, which technically takes it up to five options. And, on start-up, users are prompted to allow or deny the geotagging of shots. So that's a whole extra option. It's not a great camera, given Sony Ericsson's past expertise in the area.
The phone's basic photo gallery also betrays the X8's Android 1.6 roots. The ageing version of Android featured a super-simple list of your pics – and that's all you get here. Disappointing.
The only option on the Album screen itself is to delete several, - so you can ditch unwanted photos. Press a photo bring it up fullscreen and the standard Android sharing options then appear in one of Sony Ericsson's corner units – where you can upload it directly to Facebook, push it through any installed Twitter apps or Gmail it to whomever you like.
This advanced social integration is one area where Android excels. The sharing menus make struggling to get pictures off your phone a thing of the past, and even with the outdated Android 1.6 at its core, the Xperia X8 is a great phone for boring people on the internet with photos of your everyday life. Such as...
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Pictures emerge at 2048 x 1536 resolution and picture quality is quite poor. They're incredibly compressed down to between 250KB and 500KB file sizes, resulting in some major JPEG noise and artefacting.
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Indoor photos of bright things are a little better, but there's no focus or macro mode on the X8's camera, so there's not much room for anything fancy.
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They'll work as proof you went to a certain place, but that's about it.
