Personal preference is a crazy thing. When evaluating what you consider to be the perfect phone, different people take different factors into consideration. After doing my LG Optimus 2X review I read a comment I found bizarre: one person really liked the device but the lack of a dedicated camera key really disappointed them.
My thought was, “Ummm… really?”
In my mind, dedicated camera key’s don’t serve much of a purpose any more. You can easily put the camera app on your homescreen and the on-screen picture button works just fine. If you’re trying to take a self-pic I can understand the interest, because it’s impossible to find the software button when the screen is pointed away from you. But the Optimus 2X and a lot of other phones now have front facing cameras where self-pics are equally easy with the on-screen button.
By the way, I’ve also found the action of pressing the dedicated camera key/button causes more wobble, jiggle, and therefore unintended blurriness than software keys. Perhaps I’ve just got shaky hands but I definitely prefer the software camera key.
But that’s why they call it personal preference, right? Even my own personal preferences change over time, too. I used to be a hardware keyboard fanatic and now I don’t see much of a point in using anything besides the touchscreen unless there is some ulterior motive like gaming with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play or SSHing into your server to perform administrative duties.
How about you? Do you prefer a dedicated hardware camera key or are you thinking “who needs another button?” and just want something showing on your software? Make sure you let us know WHY you voted the way you did!
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