Retail droids could possibly ship with faulty cameras

[ZeRo_C0oL]

Thanks for sharing, I would have been pretty upset had I gotten home Friday with a phone that was faulty out of the box. I'll be trying mine out as soon as they hand it to me.

Ditto. I'm hoping for the best.

[pilot25]

So what do you do when the camera clicks in the store and they give you another and that clicks?

How do you prove the clicking is a flaw? Is the clicking coming from inside the device or is it an audio speaker click?

We have 30 days on this thing, right?

[New2u]

You do have 30 days trial on the phone yes, but you should notice a decent audible noise when you start up the software. if when you start the camera up and you hear a noise you think could be the clicking, talk to the reps as soon as possible. This is another reason to get it from the VZW store, the BB reps will probably be like "oh well". If they say the noise is normal or anything like that, try to insist that you try another 1 or two and see if they make the same noise. If you still don't feel satisfied, tell them to mark on your account that you are concerned that the camera is defective, and that the rep would not give you a replacement, if you use this method, do not leave until you are certain that the note has been put on your account. (Even if they are going to give you a replacement for the phone but they don't have anymore left at the store, I would still tell them to mark that on my account for future reps to be aware of.)

[pilot25]

Thanks for the inside info. I'm going to try 3 devices and then walk away and wait until they are fixed in the next shipment.

[Zippster]

Should be pretty evident if you dont even need to take a picture but simply start up the phone seeing as though you need the phone on to activate it.

[shatteredzman]

FAUguy added more information in another post.
HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource - View Single Post - Motorola Droid: Picture-of-the-Day, Camera Reviews and Issues thread
"
I received a good suggestion that I should record a video of the camera problem.
The first video is with the camera set to auto focus, and the 2nd video is set to macro.
In both cases you can hear the "clicking" when the program starts, and hear the lens moving when trying to focus.
Notice that each time it showed the 4 red corners, meaning it wasn't able to properly focus.
If you turn the focus off (set to infinity) you still get the "clicks" at the beginning, but not when taking the picture (since its not focusing).

Droid Video 1 with Auto Focus 33MB
http://home.comcast.net/~fauguy/droid/droid1.avi

Droid Video 2 with Macro Focus 50MB
http://home.comcast.net/~fauguy/droid/droid2.avi
Sorry for the large files sizes, but not YouTube account
"

[mikeatdroidforums]

so you wont know upon turning on the device. youll have to enter into the picture program and listen for clicking? just want to be clear. hoping the best buy guy doesnt feel like being a hard ass since im not going to be tooooo happy about having to fight for a replacement. especially knowing that pickings are slim im sure.

[New2u]

Yeah that was my understanding that you needed to start the program which would initialize the camera and it's components.

[pilot25]

Okay, how to we start the camera program so we, at least, look like we know what we are talking about.

Looks to me, in the video, we just push the button on the top of the device when tilted sideways.


This is a major f-up in my book. This could be just one problem that has been discovered with numerous others uncovered.

[JhankG]

Thanks for the videos. Glad I know what to listen for now. I hope we can test out the camera before they go through the whole syncing with gmail process. If I get one with a faulty camera...FML.