Hello

I purchased a tytnII about 6 weeks ago. I have been pleased with basic functionality/responsiveness and the feel of mechanical sturdiness of the phone itself. I am NOT at all impressed with the responsiveness of the camera however. As I'm looking through the screen and moving the phone around - the image drags severely behind what it's actually "looking at". I have old 1.1Mp digital cameras that really out perform the camera in this phone. If the subject of the picture is moving at all - then the picture is a blurry mess. Please tell me if there is some setting on this phone that can improve the performance of the camera. I've looked and haven't found anything. I tried reducing the quality of the resulting picture thinking that doing so may result in better responsiveness but it doesn't help at all.

The performance is so bad I have a hard time believing that it's normal. I've looked at some of the reviews of this phone that include pictures that were taken with it, and I really can't imagine taking those pictures with my phone without a camera stand and no wind. I am hoping that someone else can point out some setting that I'm missing.

I was really looking forward to having a usable 3.0 Megapixel camera when I bought this phone.

Thanks for any insights or advice.
 

 

Hi,

You are describing the exact same issues and performance of most Pocket PC cameras in general and HTC non-led non-flash cameras in detail I'm afraid. The shutter lag is also a pain, on my pre-production HTC Cruise the picture freezes onscreen when the shutter is pressed but the actual image is taken nearly a second or so later in low light, normally meaning the camera is now down by my side!

My old XDA II and Mini XDA (O2 branded HTC devices) did the same type of thing. It seems to get worse as the resolution of the camera increased over the years.

To get good pictures from the unit and most PPC cameras you will need strong light, preferably sunlight.

Working indoors requires a steady hand and no movement of the subject.

I wish the manufacturers would use a proper flash like the Sony Ericsson cameraphones, but as PPC's sell more to business than home users, the addition of 3G and other technologies seem to be more of a priority than a decent camera.

Sorry, but you are describing the correct functionality of the device at present.

 

Regards

Ivan

Hi there

Thanks for the response. Frankly though, I hope you're wrong

I found a post on wikipedia about the HTC TytnII talking about some video driver issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_TyTN_II#Video_Driver_Issues

and here is another site that references video driver issues that have an effect on camera performance: http://www.htcwiki.com/page/HTC+TyTN+II+Video+Issues?t=anon along with a 4000+ name petition for HTC to fix it.

Check out these two quotes:

"This issue is most probably is also connected to the utterly poor performance of the camera. As many users have noticed the response time from clicking the camera button to the actual photo being taken is extremely slow on this device. Also the "seeker" display suffers from terrible lag."

"It's also important to note that this is not a hardware problem. There are products based on the same chipset that come with proper drivers and as such they do not suffer from poor performance."

 Obviously the second of these quotes is the most appealing since it shows some hope. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and my eyes open.
 

 

 

You are right, some of these issues look to be addressed in an issue with HTC not enabling hardware video acceleration in some devices.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/17/htc_chipset_anger/

 

In my defence though, I replied to you on the 11th Jan and this issue did not actually hit the news until the 16th when the Wikipedia link was updated and the 17th when The Register reported it and we heard about it!!

As the link you supplied attests, HTC have not publically admitted any issue so far and they certainly didn't tell us about it.

Bear in mind the issues with the software rendering and camera control delay could therefore hopefully be fixed, I will suprised if this has anything to do with the low-light level performance, as that is camera hardware. Here's hoping though.

 

Hopefully HTC are listening and this will get sorted out. I'd like a perfomance boost with AVI playback on my Cruise.

Regards

Ivan

excellent so now that i finally to decide on a phone for work you guys come out and tell me the cameras a non-starter? I was a bit undecided whether i wanted this model as well but it just looks great! I saw a video and some live photos at http://www.timtechs.com/unlocked-htc-tytn-ii-prd147.html and I dont really care how well it works when it looks that good :->

I'm quite pleased with all of the features of the phone except the camera.

I haven't put the video through it's paces with any games or videos, since that's not really my thing, but I was really looking forward to being able to snap shots here and there without carrying my camera around. So that part is disapointing to me.

I just took this picture a minute ago with the TytnII, the picture is of our fat cat sitting on a chair by my computer. This picture was taken with my elbows on the table and look how blurry it is.

 

http://cid-a941f66695c4da22.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/test/Tytn2%20photos/IMAG0069.jpg

 Needless to say, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of that updated driver.

All pocket PC cameras hate low light levels.

The TyTn II and HTC Cruise have a shutter lag which compounds the issue which appears to be driver releated and therefore possibly fixable.

If the subject is not moving, then both cameras take good photos in good light.

I will update this thread as and when anything happens. I own the Touch Cruise so I have a vested interest in this personally.

Regards

 

Ivan

Devicewire 

"HTC pledged to Register Hardware last week that it was in the process of “investigating and validating these reports."

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/01/24/htc_class_action_response/

More updates as I find out anything.

 

Regards