HTC EVO 4G front-facing camera test: good, but it records a mirror image

May 26, 2010 | by Andrew Kameka

Food for thought when you’re using that HTC EVO 4G front-facing camera: it records everything backwards. I first noticed someone mention that the camera recorded “backwards” but I thought they were just experiencing an error because of the Qik app. Then today I discovered that the “problem” is indeed the 1.3 megapixel camera at the front of the phone. Take a look at this test video I shot using the EVO.

Notice the trees and passing cars on the left side of the video? Well, they should actually be on the right side because I was sitting in the driver’s seat of my car. The EVO flipped everything in the recording for some reason. Not a major problem, but something to keep in mind when you’re recording with that camera.

Now comes the most important stuff. You probably also noticed in the video that my handsome mug shows fairly well. The image quality is clean and smooth when recording in VGA mode, which actually performs better than I anticipated when not using Qik.

As for Qik, well, that’s less exciting. Qik has done well to improve audio recording of broadcasts, but random stutters still plague the service’s performance on Android. Though Qik once routinely cut off the last 10-20 seconds of every video I attempted to record, it has since fixed that problem. Immediately after I ended this live broadcast, the last 10 seconds were missing, but they magically reappeared a short time after. Take a look at this video and cross your fingers that things continue to improve.

camera, evo 4g, htc evo, HTC EVO 4G

7 Comments

andy says:

May 26, 2010 at 7:12 pm

Funny video; I didn't get that you were in the driver seat at first.
@BenjRubenstein says:

May 26, 2010 at 7:20 pm

You look like Morpheus from the Matrix in that video
Phil says:

May 26, 2010 at 7:55 pm

It's probably so that you look better to yourself. Since we are used to looking at ourselves in a mirror, we tend to find flipped images of ourselves more appealing.
SHaitien says:

May 27, 2010 at 2:56 am

The quality looks good in the youtube video. (thumbs up for Black Milk) My recent post Motorola “Shadow” – New Photo and Specs
Fernsf says:

May 27, 2010 at 9:44 am

Not a huge deal but hopefully an update can fix this
Suzie Hope says:

June 4, 2010 at 8:02 am

The unleashing of the EVO 4G is sure to be beyond belief. I cannot wait to get in line and wait this phone out. My local Sprint store is going to be open at 8am. I hope this phone is not a failure like the Palm Pre. Such a horrible phone. I got a lot of good info from HTC EVO Review
eh! says:

January 20, 2011 at 9:47 am

Incase you did not notice, the live image on the phone needs to be flipped or you would get confused while recording. Imagine you turn left and live video turns the other way around, since that is not happening the app is not defective. Might be a ID 10 T error. Best of luck!

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