Our first BlackBerry Bold 9900 HD Video Recording test resulted in a lot of great feedback, with just about everybody impressed as all heck at the 720p HD output. The colors were bright, details were sharp and even the sound quality was clear. The only real complaint was about our shakiness, and I made note that we didn't have the Image Stabilization option turned on. So per your requests, I ran back to the scene of the crime this afternoon for a late lunch break from review writing and we shot a new take with IS enabled.
Image Stabilization is moreso for when you're focusing on spot -- and in this video we still do move around quite a bit -- but you can see the smoothness it adds, and where it really pays off is when you're sitting aiming on one spot which is where IS is meant to help most (there's a lot of compensation happening during the rapid transitions as it tries to keep things from getting choppy). Pretty solid though yet again.
Overall I'm really happy with the video recording on the Bold 9900, and am OK with the camera for photo taking too. I know a lot of you are disappointed that the new BlackBerry 7 Smartphones have an always-in focus camera only (no more single shot autofocus) and for sure I'd rather see that functionality have been retained as well, but I've been managin to snap some pretty great photos. You just have to make sure you're holding still when you snap the image. At least the processor/camera is so fast to use now that if you don't like your first photo you can take many more in rapid succession until you get one you like. Let's just say I'm more stoked about having HD video recording than I'm mad about losing autofocus, so to me we're still further ahead here (even if I'd rather have both).
Check out the video above for the live action. Be sure to set the youtube playback to 720HD!
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