HTC Inspire 4G review

You'd think with such an enormous lens on the back of the HTC Inspire 4G, the handset would at least take awesome photos and video.

The Inspire is capable of 3264x2448 pixel images from its 8MP sensor, with autofocus and dual-LED flash. Face detection and geotagging are also present and accounted for.

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Compared to other HTC handsets we've used with better specs (Amaze 4G, we're looking at you!), we were surprised to find that the Inspire 4G actually snapped decent photos.

Lower light images came with a fair amount of grain and noise, but the dual-LED flash evened out indoor shots quite nicely.

While in Camera mode, the volume rocker acts as zoom in/out control, which caused problems for us while taking landscape shots – our left thumb kept pressing the volume rocker by mistake, but southpaws may not find this quite as problematic.

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There's no setting to disable the zoom, which is unfortunate since it's rather jarring when used on video, and being completely digital, produces lousy results regardless.

After taking a photo, you're presented with a quick preview of the image and immediately given options to return to camera mode, delete image, share it to multiple services or set it as a contact icon, Footprints or wallpaper.

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HTC also includes a variety of real-time effects for your photos: Distortion, Vignette, Depth of field, Dots, the Instagram-style Vintage, Vintage Warm and Vintage Cold as well as grayscale, sepia and other filters. (Video recording is sadly limited to colorization filters only.)