Motorola Motoluxe review

Poor hardware meets dull design in this middling Android 2.3 smartphone

Motorola Motoluxe review
This Android 2.3 smartphone has an 8MP camera, but lacks processing power

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The Motorola Motoluxe's video isn't much more impressive than the image capture mode. In fact, if anything it's a little worse.

The highest quality resolution you can get with this is 800 x 480, but annoyingly the default capture setting is 640 x 480. If you want to change this, you'll have to dip not into the sidebar settings, but use the touchscreen 'Settings' button, which brings up a second menu.

Here you can find a token gesture to editing where you can change the capture quality, the codec and the white balance.

Motorola Motoluxe review

Speaking of the sidebar menu, again linger over the scant choices at your peril, because as quickly as you tap the bar out, it will collapse again. Here you'll find the flash mode, colour mode, camera flip to front-facing VGA and choice to change back to still image mode.

You can't zoom when shooting, not even using the volume rocker. There is a light in 'Flash mode' to use when shooting darker scenes, but as we show, it's about as helpful as a chocolate teapot.

Motorola Motoluxe review

In our first video, a slow pan around a dimly lit bar produces an almost useless video - people by lights are plunged into silhouettes and others are not discernible at all. And a blinding additional light hasn't made much difference.

The camera fares a little better outside where there is a tad more light. The image is still incredibly pixelated and the movement is jerky, but people and buildings are easily visible.

In the next video, the action of the moving cars is quite smooth, despite a little handshake. The harsh sunlight has all but bleached out the blue of the sky, and the audio of the cars plays back as simple noise distortion.

Using the sepia colour mode lends a lot more contrast to the video, meaning areas and things that were washed out in the sunlight, such as the moving birds, have more depth to them.