Review: Pantech Laser
Camera
The Laser has a 3 megapixel camera with a fixed focus lens and no flash. There is no dedicated hardware key for the camera, which means users have to resort to digging for it in the menu. Luckily, it can be added as a shortcut to one of the three home screens.
It takes perhaps 3 seconds to launch, which is too slow in my book. Again, since there is no physical camera key, users have to rely on the touch screen to make adjustments and actually shoot images. There is a column on each side of the display providing access to tools to control the camera. The brightness can be adjusted without diving into any special menus. Anything beyond that, however, and users need to wade through a number of options. White balance, effects, resolution and storage location may all be fine-tuned. Users can turn geo-tagging on or off and dial in the picture quality that suits them most.
The Laser offers some genuinely fun picture shooting tools. There are different shooting modes, including Normal, Smile Shot, Self, Wink, Face Effect, and Panorama. The Face Effect one is worth exploring, as it can be used to distort the image as it is taken. My favorite effect? Bighead.
Taking pictures requires concentration. You have to press and hold the on-screen shutter button. This is one place, other than the three home screens, where the screen seems to have trouble reacting to input. I'd press the shutter button and often get nothing. It requires a firm tap and you have to keep your finger on the screen until you hear the shutter sound. It takes the Laser about 1 second to prepare the camera to shoot, and then another second or two to shoot and process the image before returning you to a review screen.
Gallery
The Laser's photo gallery isn't half bad. It can be opened from the camera or the main menu. Images can be arranged in list or grid form, and users can create folders for managing their image library. Pressing an image opens it up, swiping left or right cycles through all the images in a given folder. It doesn't matter if the phone is open or closed, the gallery behaves the same either way.
While basic navigation is fine, it is somewhat lacking in features. Images can be renamed, moved, sorted and sent, but not edited in any way, shape or form. Not even basic rotate or crop is on board.
CTIA Fall 2010
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Pantech Laser
