CNET's Jessica Dolcourt checks out just how good the 8-megapixel camera and screen are on the full-HD LG Nitro HD.
Jessica Dolcourt
Jessica is a passionate content strategist and team leader across the CNET family of brands. She leads a number of teams, including commerce, performance optimization and the copy desk. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on the iPhone and Samsung devices. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds.
Jessica began her leadership role managing CNET's How To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones to home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick in the UK.
Photos looked lush on the LG Nitro HD's 1,280x720-pixel display, but a little less so when viewed on a ho-hum computer screen. Here's a shot of a tree. Colors looked good, but I was hoping for photos sharp enough to cut you. All photos in this slideshow were taken in auto mode and resized, but are otherwise untouched. (Read our full LG Nitro HD review.)
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Action!
Colors looked good in this outdoor shot, but do you see that royal blue halo surrounding the fence links? Yeah, the Nitro HD added it all by itself.
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Pooch
Notice the fuzziness around this adorable canine face? A 3-second shutter lag kept producing blurry photos of this friendly tail-wagger. I was lucky that he stood still long enough for me to capture this shot. That's a camera flaw without question.
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I'll take one of everything, please
Good idea: take a photo of delicious-looking cakes to drool over later on. Bad idea: use this camera for indoor shots, because much is lost in this dull, flat translation.
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Stay outdoors
Shots bathed in light are usually better as a rule. I liked the color balance here. The colors were a bit pumped up, but I liked seeing individual flower "feathers," a point in the Nitro's favor.
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Street cred
This was the best photo of my test shoot. The Nitro HD perfectly captured the vibrant colors and textures of the paint and its underlying wall.
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Front-facing
If you're going to use a video chat app like Qik, or take a self-portrait, this is the camera you use. It does pretty well with its 1.3-megapixel output, but notice that my hair is more in focus than my face, despite my face being the center of the shot.
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Bar
CNET mobile reporter Roger Cheng shot the bar at the LG Nitro launch event, taken indoors on auto mode. Nitro HD: 0, "Party" lighting: 1.
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Boxes
These boxes of HDTVs didn't come out looking HD-quality in this indoor test shot at the LG Nitro HD launch event.
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Hello, Moto
One of the first shots we took with the phone; this was also shot indoors in lower lighting.
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Go fish
The Nitro HD, top, shows a smoother rendering. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, on the bottom, has more pixelation along the belly. The Galaxy Nexus also has a full HD display.
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Berries
They're close, but the Nitro HD (top) shows deeper greens and slightly richer reds.
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Clouds
The HD screenshot is almost identical on the two phones, but not quite. Look closely and you'll see that the Nitro HD (top) has blacker blacks in the clouds and corners, and more wave detail where the light rests on the water's surface.
