Cameras in our phones have become so common these days that even in promotional blurb, they get cast aside as a nice little added feature, but not a crucial component. Despite what many people predicted, the cameraphone has not made us ditch our digital cameras.

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz will change that.

The camera on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz wasn’t a last minute add-on in the design process. It wasn’t thrown in because all phones have to have a camera now. In fact, the Vivaz feels more like a camera that has been redesigned to be able to make calls, text and surf the internet than a phone with a camera tacked on.

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The first clue to this is the fact that along the right hand side of the phone you will find dedicated camera controls. You get a zoom control rocker and 2 shutter buttons. One is for taking photos, the other for shooting video. While this might sound a little unnecessary, as most cameras get by with just one, it eliminates the need for going through menus to select video or photo and so saves time when you need to suddenly capture a moment.

When you are in camera mode, you have the benefit of a viewfinder unparalleled in pretty much any digital camera, with the Vivaz’s 3.2″ touchscreen. Everything is displayed in excellent clarity and it is quick and responsive to your touch.

On the right side of the viewfinder there are five shortcuts. Those cover Scenes, Shoot mode, Focus settings, Exposure compensation and Auto mode. When you select Auto mode the handset takes care of applying the most appropriate scene settings for your photos.

The settings menu gives you another set of customizable options. Those include self-timer, white balance, flash on/off, effects, image stabilizer and picture size. You can also choose whether you’ll see a preview of every taken snapshot and if the image orientation should be recorded in the EXIF info. The camcorder part of the camera supports a very similar set of customizable settings except the image stabilization.

So the camera on the Sony Ericsson Vivaz is top quality, with 8 Megapixels and able to take pictures up to 3264 x 2448 pixels.

What is even more impressive about this cameraphone is that it arguably has better video recording capabilities than you will find on pretty much any digital camera, and will even push some dedicated camcorders for quality.

The Sony Ericsson Vivaz captures 720p videos at 24 fps. But its not just the amazing quality that the Vivaz can shoot in that makes its video capture so impressive, but the continuous auto-focus feature. This is a feature that you normally have to shell out for a dedicated camcorder to get, so for it to be included on a cameraphone is hugely impressive.

Of course remember that alongside this photo and video shooting, you will get all the things you would expect from a modern phone, with browsing and messaging capabilities all present and correct.

The added bonus is that because this phone is available through Three, you also get a built in Skype app, which means you can make free calls to any of your skype friends, thus saving your generous minutes for when you really need them.

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