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Review: Alcatel Venture for Virgin Mobile USA

Media Camera Photos/Video Browse/Customize Extras

Camera

The Venture's camera resembles the stock Android camera, but has a few modifications. There's no physical camera key, so you'll have to use the home screen shortcut to launch the camera (there's no lock screen shortcut, sadly). It's not the fastest-opening camera ever, that's for sure. What's odd is the orientation of the camera. As with other Android phones, the camera software expects that the phone will be held sideways when capturing images. This feels a but awkward with the monoblock QWERTY design of the Venture, though I suppose it's something owners will get used to.

The left edge of the viewfinder is reserved for some floaty control settings. Touch them, and drop-down menus appear so that you can make adjustments to basic functions, such as the flash, lighting, exposure, etc. The shutter button is on the right side of the viewfinder.

The software is fairly limited, and somewhat slow. There are no fun shooting modes, such as panorama, for example. Focus is slow, and taking pictures is slow.

We encountered a bug during testing that rendered the camera useless. The bug resolved itself after we wiped the phone and started over. According to Virgin Mobile, the bug was limited to our review unit and was not present on 50 random devices it tested.

Gallery

The gallery is the stock Android option that's been around forever. Photo albums float in stacks in the main gallery view, and you can sift through them in the chronological timeline in which they are arranged. It has a neat 3D look and feel to it. If you have photos stored in Google's Picasa service or Google+, they are also included in the gallery and you can sift through them with ease. The gallery does the normal things, such as slide shows and allow for photos to be shared via social networks.

As for editing, the Venture only allows for crop and rotate. That kind of stinks.

Next page: Photos/Video

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Alcatel Venture / Premiere

2.8" display 240 x 320 pixels
Snapdragon S1 MSM7627 processor 0.5 GB RAM
1,300 mAh battery
Memory Card Slot, Hardware Text Keyboard, Headphone Jack (3.5mm)

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