Review: LG Vortex
Photos
After using the great, refined camera app on this phone, it was disappointing to see the resulting images, which were just lousy. Photos I shot with the 3.2-megapixel camera on the LG Vortex were a mess. There were some occasional winners, but most of my pictures were unusable for even social network sharing. Smaller picture messages might be more appropriate.
The lens could not focus properly, which made me miss not having a dedicated two-stage camera button to better aim and control focus. Details were mostly lost, leaving much of the picture fuzzy, especially on subjects that were a deep red. This is a common problem on camera phones. Even outdoors, objects that were in shadows seemed to disappear into the darkness. Bright lighting also blew out the sensor, resulting in shocking white spots or a blue rim around the edges of objects.
With no flash, the LG Vortex had even more problems shooting indoors. Even with plenty of natural light, the camera still produced underexposed images that looked like shots taken in a dark room. With all of my interior lights turned on, my images still looked faded, with a general haze in spots and a lack of detail throughout.
Video
Video quality was just as bad as the still images. The camcorder produced videos with plenty of blocky compression artifacts, which made my videos seem more blurry. The phone also had trouble quickly switching from brightly lit scenes to darker spots. Unless you spot a sasquatch crossing the road in front of you on a bright, sunny day, you'll want to skip shooting videos with this phone.
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LG Vortex
