Photo Distortions On Razr - Typical Of This Phone?

[Rich H]

Hey folks,

I've recently received my first cell phone (yes, I believe I was the last person on earth without one). It's the Motorola RAZR V3 and generally I like it. However, I noticed a problem with the photos that I took with the phone's camera. When I'd look at the photos in my "Photo Album" on the phone, I noticed an overlaying distortion. It was a light colored grid-like pattern, almost like staring at the photos through a lightened chain-link fence. Or more like a light checkerboard pattern overlaying the image. It tended to make every photo look kind of ugly.

So, thinking it had a defect I returned it...and the replacement RAZR showed the same problem. Upon closer inspection, and after testing the images as "wallpaper" vs only looking at them via the photo album, it appears this distortion must be from the compression used to get photos taken at 320x240 and 640x480 to show on the photo album screen. A photo taken at the lowest resolution doesn't show these artifacts in the photo album.

Now, I'm not expecting stunning picture quality on a tiny screen like this - but I'd at least hope for what pictures do appear to be free of additional distortion. My question is, if this is indeed indicative of this phone's camera/display performance, why don't I see anyone else complaining about it? Sure some pictures will be transferred on to a computer and won't (I presume) suffer the artifacts - but it still means the pictures are pretty ugly to view on the phone itself. What good is taking photos, sharing them with other people on your phone (which I thought was part of the fun of new cell phones) and the big new screen, if the photos are distorted?

My wife's Samsung P207 cell phone doesn't suffer from this at all - pictures look clean when you take them and clean when you view them later on in the phone's album. Same with some other friend's phones.

What gives? Anyone else bothered by this? (It's not possible I got two bum phones in a row, is it?)

Any work-arounds for this, aside from always taking photos in the lowest, crappiest resolution?

Many thanks!

Rich.

[Rich H]

Bump.

C'mon. I can't be the first person on earth to have noticed this, can I?

Thanks.

Rich.

[intrepidusa]

Rich,

The V3 has a sub-megapixel camera...can't expect much from a camera of that resolution. I have not noticed what you are experiencing however on any RAZR that I have had or repaired for customers...I have transferred images for them to CD and the quality was ok without the pattern you are referring to...must be where you are getting the phones from. What carrier is the phone from and what S/W version do you have...the phone may need to be flashed with newer software or just reflashed to the original as a kind of hard reset.

[ladydragonette]

i'm experiencing the same problem with my phone as well. i've only had it for three days, and either it wasn't there before, or i just noticed it this morning. i have a v505 before this phone, and never noticed any problems with the photo display, so i'm pretty sure its not related to the pixels it has...
i have a black v3 from cingular, s/w version R374_G_OE.41.C3R_B