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As with other features, you wouldn't expect to get a world-beating phone on a £120 camera, and the Obi MV1 is in no danger of exceeding expectations.
It's not a total loss though – it comes with an 8MP rear camera, which can actually take some surprisingly good photos.
There's face detection software, which makes it easier to grab accurately focused shots of people, but I found that tap-to-focus really struggled on the MV1.
In theory you can tap on the screen to set the focus point, but the camera never focused on what I wanted it to – I would sometimes spend ages tapping, and it either focused on something else, or didn't focus at all.
If you just want to take a quick shot the MV1 doesn't make it that easy – and that's an issue when all the competing handsets are strong on autofocus.
I did find the resolution of the images quite impressive though; you won't be embarrassed to upload these to social media, although you also won't be troubling many photography competition juries.
You can also record Full HD video at 30fps. That's all you're really going to need from the MV1, and the quality was pretty good.
The process of shooting video is confusing though. As soon as you tap the video camera button the MV1 starts recording, where most other phones require you to first tap the video icon, and then press a dedicated record button.
The quality of the video is the most important thing, though and you won't be disappointed unless you're looking for 4K levels of quality – in which case you won't be buying this phone.
On the front of the phone there's a 2MP camera. After using a variety of cheap but decent-quality Chinese handsets recently I'd forgotten how rubbish a properly low-end selfie camera can be, and I was immediately disappointed when I tried to take a selfie on the MV1.
The camera's field of view is very cramped, so it's hard to get everything – or everyone – that you want into the shot. On top of that, every image I did manage to take turned out grainy. That's just a fault of phones in this price bracket though, and if you're want a phone this cheap you'll be lucky to get a good selfie shooter.
Camera samples
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