Windows 10 System Apps Review: Camera

Note: This page is a review which forms part of the post Windows 10 System Apps Review

What’s this app for?

A critical app if you are using a phone or tablet, but on a PC this app has limited usefulness for the vast majority of people. It takes photos and videos using your device’s camera and comes with a handful of customisation settings.

Does it do the job it was primarily designed for?

This is certainly no killer camera app, but one has to say it probably does succeed at doing the basics of taking a photo or video of whatever it is your point your camera at. Such basics doesn’t take much to program, one assumes. The app's limited feature-set is really akin to boiling water in a kettle and advertising the kettle as a device that makes a nice cup of tea; there’s undoubtedly more in the 21st century to just lining up an image and clicking a button. We want a cup of tea these days, not just boiled water.

Similarly to the new style camera app in the latest Android OS, it isn’t initially obviously how to control this app. Once you’ve figured it out, you’re plain sailing, and plain is about the sum of this app.

There’s some gadgetry settings to take photos at set intervals, change basic aspects of the photo or video output, or turn on photo burst mode, but that’s your lot. 

Most likely on a phone there would be more tinkering of camera settings but on the computer you don’t get past basic, which is probably all one needs. Although it’s a shame there’s nothing “funky” to get excited about for us PC users in this app like some wacky filters.

What’s the alternative?

There are other camera apps in the store. Some are even free. So one isn’t stuck with the default app. Although as said before, it probably suffices for the majority of PC users.

Hit, Miss, or Maybe?

Maybe; I have to admit, it does do the basic job of taking photos and video, but little else. This makes it at least useful if one needs to do either of those tasks, although this isn’t something one is likely to do much of on a PC.