Sony Xperia Miro review

Sony's second budget handset in as many months - does it do enough to stand out?

Sony Xperia Miro review
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Packing a 5MP sensor, the camera on the Sony Xperia Miro is about par for the course for a phone in this price bracket.

It's a fairly standard offering in terms of options too, with a handful of scene modes such as landscape, night and document.

Sony Xperia Miro review

You can also change the white balance, metering and exposure value, turn the flash on or off, set up a self timer and set whether to tap to focus or autofocus.

It's not the most comprehensive set of options, but it should be enough for casual snappers. Changing the options is straightforward as well, and all the options are overlaid on top of the camera screen, so you can see changes as they happen.

Sony Xperia Miro review

More disappointing is how long it takes to actually take a photo. There's often a several second delay between pressing the button and the image actually being captured, which is annoying for a couple of reasons.

First off, if you're taking a lot of photos it will slow things down considerably and could get quite annoying.

Secondly, it limits the camera's usefulness for capturing a specific moment that might only last a few seconds - such as a bird in flight.

Once you do take a photo, you'll find that the quality is generally reasonable. It's nothing close to what you could achieve with an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy S3 of course, but those handsets both cost substantially more.

Compared to other handsets in its price range, such as the Sony Xperia U and the HTC Wildfire S, the Sony Xperia Miro holds its own on camera performance. It doesn't outperform them, but it doesn't get shown up either.

Ultimately it's a decent enough camera, but it won't be replacing your dedicated compact camera.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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Extreme close ups come out incredibly blurry, but pull back a little and the camera is capable of sharp, detail-rich images.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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Bright light inevitably washes out affected areas, but colours remain natural and it doesn't overly flood the image.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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Without a flash, dark rooms lack detail and display a substantial amount of noise.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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With flash, the same image is considerably brighter and displays more accurate colours. However, it still suffers from noise and lack of detail.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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Even with night mode activated, the Sony Xperia Miro's camera struggles to make much out in the dark.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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Document mode isn't always as crisp as we'd like, but small text is still perfectly readable.

Sony Xperia Miro review

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The camera on the Sony Xperia Miro struggles to pick out details on landscapes. Viewed on the phone they look great, but blowing them up yields disappointing results.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.