It might be fair to say that photo apps allowing you to down-grade your digital pics in order to make them look a little more "orfentic" has reached over-saturation (pun intended) point, indeed the choice is simply overwhelming. 

However, all offer something a little different in the way of effects and features so choosing the right one is not all that straightforward. One of the big hitters on the iPhone has been Lo-Mob, which in May found itself WP7-bound. Does it deliver all that retro-style in an easy-to-use way? Read on, dear reader, read on...

Lo-Mob

Format

WP7

Price

£1.49

Where

Marketplace

Lo-Mob for Windows Phone 7 attempts to bring an analogue feel to your digital picks, delivering over 30 different effects. Effects include square vintage, a variety of emulsion effects, photocards as well as 35mm experimentation photography - in short there's enough here to keep you going for a long while. 

35mm MF Overlap 1

You can apply these to both new and old pics, and when you've chosen, the app will "process" before giving you a thumbnail preview of all the filters at once - a killer feature which some other offerings don't have.

Once you're happy with your choice, you can then choose to send them to your buddies with an email or share through Twitter - everything is nice and simple, with control layout a breeze to use.

In our brief test the Low-Mob app functioned well and delivered some nice effects to a wide variety of shots, the phone we were using - an HTC Mozart - has a pretty decent 8-megapixel camera and although not all out photos were enhanced, it was nice to have something with which we could experiment.

Ho-Mob Reloaded

Saying this, there are still a few niggles which need to be ironed out. The first is the inconsistent way the app uses the phone's Back button; annoyingly this sent you back to the WP7 homescreen when you expect to be sent to the effect thumbnail menu - it's doesn't take long to adapt but this lack of full integration is annoying.There's also the fact that once you've taken a picture, you can't then see a full-size original version of it within the app, important if you're to give context to the effects you're choosing.

There is also a wider question of whether this method of taking a picture, and then choosing an effect misses the point of the whole Lomography principle; surely the idea is to build up a skill of knowing what might work, going with it and then having the fun of a result - which may or may not be what you intended. Being able to go back and change the effect, to some, may take something away from the process.

Clearly, in this case, convenience is king.

Other than these few quibbles Lo-Mob proves to be a very nice addition to the genre and one we would highly recommend,