INQ Cloud Touch review

The Facebook phone, the Spotify phone - all for under £200

The definitive INQ Cloud Touch review
The definitive INQ Cloud Touch review

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INQ Cloud Touch review: Camera

INQ cloud touch

Being a 'Facebook Phone', the INQ Cloud Touch wasn't expected to be any great shakes when it comes to the camera mode, and unsurprisingly, that's exactly the case here.

A 5MP camera without flash is offered up on the rear, and while we're disappointed with the lack of a light, the overall specs can't really be sniffed at for a phone at this price point.

INQ cloud touch

As we mentioned before, accessing the camera can be managed from the home screen, menu or by dragging up the relevant icon from the lock screen, and that speed of opening is something we love to see.

However, the shutter is only average (but faster thanks to a recent INQ update) - we're talking around 3-4 seconds between each picture, which is miles slower than the likes of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, which is capable of snapping around 10x faster (but is waaaaay more expensive and has a much faster processor).

The range of picture tweakery on offer is impressive though - from anti-banding to contrast alteration, it's all easy to change and makes a slight difference to photos, although nowhere near the same performance of something like the Nokia N8 (but then again you wouldn't be looking at the INQ Cloud Touch if you were after a top end camera phone).

In short: great for Twitter and Facebook (although an 'auto-upload' function should be offered for the latter, given the level of integration here) but not the best for capturing that image of the Loch Ness Monster in time. Now nobody will believe you.

INQ cloud touch review

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The standard capture mode is OK, taking this moving flag with ease and bringing out the colours well

INQ cloud touch review

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Normal scenes in bright sunlight can look a little washed out

INQ cloud touch review

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Upping the saturation does bring some decent effects though

INQ cloud touch review

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Reflections are a good method of showing detail capture - although this is grainy, the picture is mostly intact

INQ cloud touch review

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With no flash, the INQ Cloud Touch defaults to a pseudo-night mode, with it impossible to capture motion

INQ cloud touch review

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This picture is terrible noisy in varying light conditions

INQ cloud touch review

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With the exposure turned down, you can see the light focus is skewed in the original picture

INQ cloud touch review

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And with the exposure turned up, the detail is still lost, but not much more than in the original

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.