If you ask the likes of Motorola and Sony Ericsson the answer is yes, of course. Both phone makers have recently announced camera phones with (relatively) high-resolution cameras that may be capable of replacing your point-and-shoot digital camera.
If you ask the likes of Motorola and Sony Ericsson the answer is yes, of course. Both phone makers have recently announced camera phones with (relatively) high-resolution cameras that may be capable of replacing your point-and-shoot digital camera.
Announced today, Motorola's Motozine ZN5 is a collaboration between Motorola and Kodak and sports a 5 megapixel camera, built-in Xenon flash, and
a 2.5-inch LCD viewfinder. It's much more of a full-fledged camera than most camera phones, with auto focus, low-light settings, as well as panorama, macro, and multi-shot modes. Perhaps the best feature, though is the integrated Wi-Fi connectivity that lets you upload photos to the Kodak Gallery online service sans PC. Unlike some other camera phones, the ZN5 does let you transfer photos directly to a PC (without requiring you to pay wireless messaging fees), via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth file transfers, as well as the removable microSD card. The Motozine ZN5 will be available in China only in July 2008, and Motorola expects to roll it out across other countries throughout the rest of the year.
If you can hold out even longer, you may want to wait for the Sony Ericsson C905, officially announced last week and due to ship in selected markets in Q4 2008. It's sure to be more expensive (though pricing hadn't been released for either camera phone), but has a more full-featured camera: 8.1 megapixels, Xenon flash, a 2.4-inch LCD viewfinder, with auto-focus, face detection, and image stabilization. It also supports Wi-Fi image transfers and better yet, is GPS-enabled for geo-tagging your photos.
