I was also moderately impressed with the quality of the 8-megapixel camera on the phone. Viewed on the Charge's screen the still pictures I shot contained some of the contrast and clarity I saw in the videos I watched. When I viewed the photos on the large screen the high resolution of the shots was apparent. On certain shots (when I held the camera steady) I could detect the kind of fine detail you see in images shot with single-purpose cameras, but rarely in smartphone camera shots (click the zoom image at left). On the downside, the photos seemed to have a bit of a dark cast to them. The photos were not quite as good as ones I've shot with my iPhone, but noticeably better than those I've shot on my HTC EVO 4G.

The video I shot was less impressive. Viewed on my PC screen, the smallest amount of motion caused the video to blur and wash out. I also saw a lot of correction for light balance going on in the footage. The footage I shot in normal light indoors turned out better, but still not as sharp as I'd hoped. All of the videos looked better viewed on the screen of the Charge than on a full-sized display.

The camera software interface itself was easy to use, for the most part. One function allows you to tap the spot on the screen where you want to the camera to focus, which seemed to help some of my shots. I liked that the camera uses the phone's volume rocker as its zoom controller, but was disappointed that there was no physical button on the phone to start shooting images or video.

Data Speeds

Testing from my office in the South of Market district of San Francisco I recorded an average download speed of 8.5 mbps and an average upload speed of 3.9 mbps. Running the same test at the same time, I recorded a very similar average download speed--8.25 mbps. (Unfortunately, the FCC cannot accurately record LTE network upload speeds on the ThunderBolt, so that comparison is omitted here.)