What is the most camera-like camera phone available right now?

by philg

Gentle readers,

I’m trying to write up a Christmas gift guide for photo.net. I’d like to find a camera phone to recommend. As our readers are photographers first and talkers second, I want a camera phone that looks just like a point and shoot digital camera. It should have an optical zoom lens and 5-10 megapixel resolution. Somewhere in there should be a phone so that photos can be mailed to friends. I think Samsung has made some of these, maybe for the Korean market (e.g., SCH-B600). Is there anything like this on the US market or possibly an unlocked GSM phone? It doesn’t have to be the world’s best phone, just adequate.

Thank you in advance.

Philip

10 thoughts on “What is the most camera-like camera phone available right now?”

  5. One option would be the Samsung SCH-A990, available in the US through Verzion, which has a 3.2-megapixel camera.

    Samsung has a 10-megapixel phone, the SCH-B600, only in Korea, but there’s a five megapixel phone called the G600 (and also the G800) for sale in Europe. It is a quad-band GSM phone, so an unlocked version could be used in the United States without issue, on AT&T or T-Mobile, if you can buy one. The Nokia N95 is available in the US, in unlocked GSM versions, and has a 5-megapixel camera. So is the Sony K850i, which also has a 5-megapixel camera. There are a number of other Asian companies that make 4+ megapixel camera phones, many of which are tri-band GSM phones, but difficult to obtain in the US.

    I’ve only played with these fleetingly at shows like COMEX in Singapore and CES, so I don’t have an informed opinion about which has decent image quality and functional ergonomics. Unfortunately, simply integrating a high pixel count CCD or CMOS into a mobile phone does not make for a usable camera. In particular, battery life is often a major issue with these types of devices. There may be some benefits to mobile device convergence, but I think that for many people some device divergence and redundancy may actually be better. Carrying both a modern mobile phone and a Casio Exilim S-series camera is thinner and lighter than many mobile phones from just a generation ago or compact digital cameras alone. Also, for what it’s worth, I have, on more than one occaison, taken a picture with my Casio Exilim, then swapped the SD card into my Palm Treo and sent the photo from the Exilim as an e-mail attachment or MMS.

    In sum, I do not follow this question exhaustively, but I think the SCH-A990 might be the best bet if you want to buy a camera phone directly through the carrier in the US.

  10. no idea about camera phones but some more general suggestions:

    2GB and 4GB Compact Flash or SD memory cards. I like SanDisk Extremes. These things are getting very inexpensive these days. Good for stocking stuffers.

    X-Rite i1 Display 2 colorimeter and Eye MAtch calibration/profilign software package : if you have decent monitor and you actaull ywantto know what your digital photos look like for color balance before printign, you need one. Skip over the HUEY and get something that works.

    A 500Gb External HD (or two) everybody needs to back up.

    A compact Flash /SD card card reader. Reallyit’s dumb to download withthe cable connected to the camera.

    “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Adventure” by Mikkel Aaland. Lightroom does 98% of the work most photogrpahers think they need Photoshop for. Thisis an excelelnt guide to its capabilities.

    If your giftee uses Nikon cameras and lenses and you’ve got a large budget for them: A Nikon D300. If you have areally large budget: A D3. Also the new 14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor orthe new 24-70mm f/2.8 : both are excellent sets of optics.

    If they use Canon? A 40D or the 1D mark 3. The updated 16-35mm F2.8L II is pretty nifty as well as is the 17-40mm f/4L

    Finally;

    A Wacom Intuous 3 Digitizing tablet & pen. I only recently became a convert to using one of these. it really does make a genuine real world difference when doign all sorts of compouting work, not just when using your favorite digital darkroom program.

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