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The Sony Xperia Tipo has a 3.2MP rear-facing camera. There's no camera on the front of the phone, which means that video calls are more or less off the menu, as is the gimmicky face unlock feature that most Android 4.0 devices include.
Even the camera on the back is quite basic. 3.2MP isn't too bad for an entry-level smartphone camera, but bear in mind that there's no flash on it, so it doesn't fare well in poor light conditions. Even in well lit areas, results are mixed.
There are at least quite a few settings to play with - scene modes are limited to night, sports and beach and snow, but you can manually adjust the exposure value, white balance and metering.
These can all easily be changed with a menu that pops up over the camera display, which enables you to see the effects of any changes you make as they happen. There's also an option to geo-tag your photos. All in all, while the camera isn't great, it's about the standard you'd expect on a phone of this price.
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Beach and snow mode isn't brilliant at dealing with reflective surfaces. Ripples and details are evident in the water nearest the camera, but more distant water isn't handled so well, with reflections washing out the colours and detail.
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On standard settings, dark environments are very noisy, and appear almost black and white.
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Night mode brightens things up considerably and retains a little bit of the colour, though the resulting image is still quite washed out.
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Outdoor photos are blurred and washed out, even in relatively shady areas.
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Sports mode did an adequate job of shooting moving vehicles, which showed little more blur than static shots.
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Brightly lit photos lack detail, and the colours become even more washed out.
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Close ups come out slightly blurred but don't suffer too badly in comparison to other photos.
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Landscapes suffer as the detail drops dramatically on distant objects - the trees and tower in the background are little more than coloured blobs.
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The Sony Xperia Tipo's camera fares better in more closed in spaces.
