Sony Xperia Acro S review

The Acros S may not be the Sony flagship, but photographers will be pleased to know that you don't miss out in the camera department on this handset. Featuring a back- illuminated Exmor R image sensor, with 12-megapixel resolution, the photo-taking innards are as good here as they are on the Xperia S, or Xperia T.

Video recording maxes out at full 1080p HD and feature digital image stabilisation to try and take the shake out of your video clips. This certainly doesn't work as well as the optical image stabilisation on the Nokia Lumia 920, but then digital stabilisers never do.

Taking its cues from Sony's photography division, the camera settings on the Acro S is jam-packed with presets and tweaks. Important are features like exposure adjustments and the ability to use the flash as a constant photo light when shooting video. Beyond this you have a range of preset white balance settings, focus mode, metering presets and geo-tagging.

One feature of this camera which is sort of unique to the Sony line-up is a point-and-shooting setting called Quick Launch. With this option switched on, you have the ability to take a photo by holding down the physical camera button, from any screen, even when the phone is locked in standby mode. This is turned off by default, but if you're afraid of missing a moment, then Quick Launch is the answer to your prayers.

The major issue we've had with the camera in the Acro S relates to how the image sensor deals with mixed lighting. In a majority of our test pictures, highlights are overexposed which leads to the image looking washed out.

Colour reproduction is fairly good, though the camera does tend to oversaturate colour. Some people will prefer this, though we do look for more natural tones.