Motorola Atrix review

The Motorola Atrix comes equipped with a rear facing 5MP camera. While not shabby, it's certainly not cutting edge with other offerings such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 boasting 8MP cameras, and others with even higher capabilities. That's not to say that it isn't good – it works well and shoots nice pictures.

Starting up the camera from cold takes just over a second, and it's instantly ready to take the picture. This could be down to the processor again – but whatever the reason, it's a welcome feature as it cuts down the risk of the moment having passed by the time you're ready to take a snap, which happens pretty rapidly.

Once taken, your photo can then be uploaded to a plethora of apps, depending on what you have installed on the Atrix.

DIM: Some people have complained of a lack of quality in photographs taken in low light

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LOW LIGHT: Without a flash, you may as well not even bother with some shots

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BETTER: Stick the LED flash on (or leave it in Auto mode) and photos are bathed in a good volume of light, and with the minimum of noise

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SMILE: A fast shutter speed captures relatively slow moving objects without too much blur

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The shutter speed is quick. If the subject is moving quickly, you're likely to encounter blur. But if it's just a little natural movement, it locks on, focuses and snaps very quickly after you press the capture button with a good focus.

There are various modes, including a sports mode, which should make taking photos of fast moving subjects a little easier, although it didn't seem to make much difference during the review process.

Other modes on offer include the likes of Macro, Auto and Portrait, and there are some in-built effects which will give you a black and white or sepia alternative. However with so many free photo manipulation apps available on the Market, the built-in effects are a bit pointless because third party ones are so much better.

You can get into these settings fairly easily by tapping on the screen, making them move in from the right. But that means that you can't tap in on the screen to choose where you want to focus the shot. You have to let the Motorola Atrix do this for you, and it can get this wrong.

For example, it won't focus automatically on text and because you can't tap the screen to focus. You have to go into the Scenes menu and manually change the mode from Auto to Macro. In theory it only takes a few seconds, but in practise, it's annoying that you're forced to go digging around menus.

There is a second, lower-res camera on the front, but aside from taking the odd self pic or using it to check your makeup, this will likely not be used for anything other than video calls.