Camera
One of the big complaints heard from
Sidekick II owners was that it had a lousy camera. The Sidekick 3 packs an improved 1.3 Megapixel camera with a flash light. The camera is a step up from the SK II's VGA camera, but it's still not all that impressive.
The camera can capture still photos at three resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 (1.3 MP). Video capture is not supported. Camera settings are minimal, with adjustments available for flash on/off/auto, Normal or Night (low light) exposure, and Sharpness On/Off. Additional settings for JPEG quality and American vs European fluorescent light interference are somewhat hidden away in a separate menu.
Photos taken with the Sidekick 3 look okay on a computer screen and pretty lousy on the SK 3's screen. The former is because the camera just isn't that great. As with most cell phone cameras, photos taken in bright, naturally lit settings look pretty good but anything taken in less than ideal light comes out grainy and dim. The latter problem also has to do with the Sidekick 3's screen, which is 2.6" in size but relatively low -resolution at 240 x 160 pixels supporting 65,00 colors. The result is an unnatural, washed-out look when viewing photos. That's too bad, because the integrated photo viewer and slideshow functionality is rather nice to use.
The "flash" on the SK 3 is really an LED light that can be turned on manually or automatically just before a photo is taken. This system is common on today's cameraphones but really doesn't help very much in low-light settings. Photos taken with the flash on tend to have a grainy or otherwise unnatural look to them that's different but not much more accurate than those taken with the flash off. Photos can be easily attached to emails or transferred to a computer via Bluetooth or on a MiniSD memory card.
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4.3
