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Handhelds Communications Graphics Software Hardware

Megapixel Cameraphones Compared 127

prostoalex writes "MobileBurn published a 'horribly un-scientific' test of three megapixel cameraphones. The contenders are the Sony Ericsson S700i, the Siemens S65, and the Motorola V710." Sadly, none of the phones seem to be able to perfectly capture a mere school bus in image form.
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Megapixel Cameraphones Compared

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  • Not the point... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:33AM (#10741484) Journal
    Of course, it's only a phone, but it's a good tool aimed at taking both vocal and video notes.
    I use mine to take VGA pics [vidovic.org] and I am very happy with their imperfections...
    • My beef with the camera/mp3/browser phones is that they are trying to consolidate everything into a single device that...

      * Has limited battery life because of it's required small size
      * Ends up getting replaced every two years
      * Marginalizes the performance of each feature (i.e. lenses)
      * Reduces cnosumer choice through bundling features

      • With diminishing returns because people don't want to pay a $50 cel phone bill, they are building-in features that you don't need but are forced to pay for.

        I challenge anyone to provide an example of a basic cel phone.

        Anyone?
        • Re:Not the point... (Score:5, Informative)

          by brain159 ( 113897 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @01:34PM (#10742425) Journal
          Doesn't appear to be available in the USA, but the Nokia 1100 is (IMHO) the best "plain" mobile phone on the UK market. (There might be a USA-variant model of it)

          Mono screen. Monophonic ringtones. Phone calls and SMS text messaging only - no MMS, no WAP, no internet. No camera. The only "toy" feature is a white LED torch on the top.

          Small without being fiddly - keypad is pretty decent, menu system is Nokia's normal pleasant low-end-phone one again.

          Most importantly - my mum has no problem using hers at all.

          link to nokia's product page [nokia.com]

        • About the only features one could consider frivolous on it are a few games and text messaging. Monochrome screen, crappy ringtones, no frills. Good reception, compact, solid (I don't even know how many times I've dropped it) and of course you can't get it anymore. I'm going to use mine until it breaks or AT&T shuts down their TDMA network.

          The problem is that when you can get a "free" cameraphone with a color screen and polyphonic ringtones and downloadable games, why would anyone want something that d
      • by Keruo ( 771880 )
        >* Has limited battery life because of it's required small size

        It's not very nice to carry around camera, pda, phone, mp3 player, radio and usb memory everywhere you go, pocket space is sometimes limited.
        Normally embedded devices with multiple functions are designed to last atleast a day without recharging.
        Of course the battery is going to run out if you speak 5 hours straight with the phone or take 100 pictures with the camera, but modern batteries are pretty good and last longer than say, the ones
    • by HellYeahAutomaton ( 815542 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @11:23AM (#10741850)
      I was curious about the domain you hold, so I poked up to the main site...


      http://www.vidovic.org/ [vidovic.org]

      If that's a pic of your family its got "serial killers" written all over it.

    • ....at band camp....
  • Lenses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrVxD ( 184537 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:34AM (#10741491) Homepage Journal
    The problem with cameraphones is largely the lenses. They suck.
    For several reasons:
    1) They have to be small (it's a phone, it has to be easily pocketable)
    2) They have a very hard life compared with a "real" camera.
    3) Most people now view mobile phones as disposable items, replacing them every year or so, so there's not a whole lot of point in spending a lot of money on a decent lens.

    (Could this ever be the first RELEVANT first post on slashdot?)
    • Re:Lenses (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      (Could this ever be the first RELEVANT first post on slashdot?)

      Not a chance. ;-)
    • Re:Lenses (Score:5, Interesting)

      by accelleron ( 790268 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:04AM (#10741583)
      I'll have to agree with you on the first two points, but:

      "1) They have to be small (it's a phone, it has to be easily pocketable)"
      1. Sure, they have to be small, but so do digicams... putting the same lens system as that used in good "credit card" cameras couldn't hurt any.

      "2) They have a very hard life compared with a "real" camera."
      2. Once again, they could bother to learn from the real camera manufacturers. Would it kill them to put a cover over the lens - one that opens/shuts automatically like in most modern cameras.

      "3) Most people now view mobile phones as disposable items, replacing them every year or so, so there's not a whole lot of point in spending a lot of money on a decent lens."
      3. I am unsure about you, but I only buy a new phone every time my contract runs out, which is ~ every two years. The difference between a 1 and 2 year timeframe is significant, as in 1 year, technology hardly evolves much in phones (from the first cameraphones in 2k3 to the MP cameraphones - simply an enhancement, not a revolution), but in two years enough has changed to make the transition worthwhile. Besides, I hardly consider something I'll use for two years "disposabe"... as a matter of fact I've yet to dispose of a cell phone - most of them go to my family or as spare parts (LCD mod for my PC, for example)
      Anyway, I hardly have $250-500 per year to spend on the latest phone, so my current one had better be good enough to last me two years or more.
      • Re:Lenses (Score:5, Informative)

        by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:45AM (#10741716) Journal
        No. 3 is very applicable in the UK where phones are heavily subsidised by call costs and it's often cheaper to upgrade your phone than buy a new li-ion battery when the one in your current phone stops holding a decent charge - for example, I manage 14 phones on contract with Orange - one of my users asked about upgrades and wondered if there was a remote chance of a PDA phone (the Orange SPV M1000) - I checked with our Orange account manager and the upgrade cost for this user is £25. Three other upgrades processed at the same time were 'free of charge'. Yep - phones are 'disposable' at the end of their 12 month contract period - in the Uk at least.
      • While you are absolutely right about a 2-year timespan allowing amazing improvemenr in the technoloy of a phone, the lens itself isn't going to get any better for the same price over that same two years. Lens technology has matured to the point where you aren't going to get nearly the same pace of advancement as in the microelectronice field; the MP phone you have now likely uses the same optics setup as the VGA phones of yesteryear.

        Sure, they could put the quality lenses used in credit card cameras in the
      • Re:Lenses (Score:3, Informative)

        by DrVxD ( 184537 )
        > Would it kill them to put a cover over the lens

        No, but it *would* increase the unit-cost. Most mobile phones now (apart, obviously, from the high-end smartphones such as the Sony Ericsson P800/P900/P910 or the Nokia 9xxx series) are built & sold on the "stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap" philosophy. Increase unit cost by, say, $5 a piece and they'll lose market share to those that don't do so. I know this because, up until very recently, I worked for a company which provides operating systems for hi
      • """
        3. I am unsure about you, but I only buy a new phone every time my contract runs out, which is ~ every two years. The difference between a 1 and 2 year timeframe is significant, as in 1 year, technology hardly evolves much in phones
        """

        The business model of all major cellphone manufacturers is for customers to buy a new phone every 18 months.
        (I have worked for a GSM consultancy, with tier-2 clients, and also for a tier-1 company in the last few years, for reference.)

        You are entirely right - it's almost
    • Re:Lenses (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lordsilence ( 682367 ) *
      Fecking 300£ every year for the latest cellphone? Hell no. I'm happy with my Nokia 6110. It does what it's supposed to do, make calls. Send SMS and eventually even have softwarecrashes. Just like the new cellphones (appart from the camerafunction) just less flashy.
    • The major difference between the contestors in the test is their ability to get the colors right. That problem is not related to lenses.
      • Re:Colors (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        color accuracy and purple fringing are most definitely related to the lens. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all using the same mass produced CCD chip.
    • I think you are forgetting:

      4) Mobile phone screens are pretty poor and small - whats the point of having beautiful lense/photos when most camera screens only have tens of thousands of pixels (I know you can sync photos with your PC but I guess most users don't).
    • (Could this ever be the first RELEVANT first post on slashdot?)

      No. [slashdot.org]

  • SE S700i... (Score:5, Informative)

    by kennycoder ( 788223 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:37AM (#10741495) Homepage
    seems to have excellent photo quality for a mobile phone. It has pretty much functions from normal digital camera that makes it very usefull. SE's S700i platform is the same from K700 phone but s700 supports memory sticks. You can read a very good review here:

    Phone [mobile-review.com]
    Phone's camera [mobile-review.com]
    • seems to have excellent photo quality for a mobile phone. It has pretty much functions from normal digital camera that makes it very usefull.

      I have just played with it at a local store. Yes it's nice but the price was 800 euros. That's an insane price for a mobile phone. With as much money, you can buy a very good small digital camera AND a very good mobile phone.

      And if you ever lose it or have it stolen ...
    • As for the size, the phone could be compared to the relatively small digital camera, which means that it is certainly bigger than the modern phones.
      While the size wouldn't bother me at all, especially given the halfway decent quality of the pictures, I know a lot of people wo want the absolute smallest phone possible, so this probably wouldn't appeal to them. Looking at the pictures, it's almost like a camera with a phone built in, rather than vice-versa. Now, if I could get something like this that had th
    • Yes that's true.. it's quite big. But 800 EUR is insane.. this stores are crazy! Im ordering it from ebay next week for 450 EUR (ebay.co.uk). For 800 EUR i could buy Rentault 5 gt turbo in portugal :p
  • by neomage86 ( 690331 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:41AM (#10741515)
    Why are they building a phone w/ a three megapixel digital camera, when I still can't get a decent basic cell, that's small and has a weeks worth of battery per charge.
    • by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:59AM (#10741561) Homepage Journal
      that's a battery issue, not something directly under most mfgs control as they don't design batteries, they buy them from others
      • by SillyNickName4me ( 760022 ) <dotslash@bartsplace.net> on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:49AM (#10741727) Homepage
        > not something directly under most mfgs control as they don't design batteries, they buy them from others

        1. I'm pretty sure that if Nokia wants a few milion batteries with certain specifications, battery manufacterors will gladly comply, so your argument does not hold.

        2. The amount of features in modern phones requires them to be more powerfull and contain more electronics and as a result use more power then needed for simple phone and text messaging functions.

        So yes, it is quite in the control of phone manufacterors.
        • Actually, Nokia and others, design around the battery. Yes, they have some say, but they cannot say give me a battery that has three times the capacity and weighs half as much. That's a limitation of battery design issue, not an availabiltiy or customization issue.

          The camera uses little/no power when not in use. The major power consumers in a mobile phone are the display and the RF transmitter. Both are essential to the basic performance of the phone.

          Also, don't make the claim that there's a marketa

          • > Actually, Nokia and others, design around the battery. Yes, they have some say, but they cannot say give me a battery that has three times the capacity and weighs half as much. That's a limitation of battery design issue, not an availabiltiy or customization issue.

            They are bound to what is physically possible, but when they pay for it, they can definitely also get better batteries developed. Mobile phones and laptops are the main reasons why we are no longer stuck with nicads as the only viable rechar
          • "but they cannot say give me a battery that has three times the capacity and weighs half as much"

            Sure they can. But they don't. What they do say is:"Let's save some money on the battery and put that dough towards a bigger screen. That's what sells phones. And if the battery dies, let's just sell them a new phone."

    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:17AM (#10741623)
      I agree. A phones get more functions I don't need, the actual phone functions get worse. For that reason I still use an old Nokia 6310, which seems to be the best pure phone ever made. Long battery life, very good reception, good sound and good easy to use adresbook. Oh, and a keyboard someone with thich fingers can use, and good voice dialling when you've got you hands full.
      • Agreed. I have a Nokia 5110 and have no need to upgrade anytime soon - unless it drops dead, of course. Then I'll probably look for a dirt cheap 5110/6110 that has been discarded by the shiny-thing addicts...
    • Two questions.
      1. How often do you have difficulty hearing on a mobile phone?
      2. How often have you seen this portrayed on TV and in film?
      I'd say it's 90% for the first and 0% for the second. (I haven't seen that Kim Basinger film yet; maybe it will be the first?) Can it be an accident that visual media producers do not portray this commonplace of our lives? Or are these folks getting rewarded by the mobile-phone industry for keeping the terrible sound quality a sort of unspoken secret?
      • 1. How often do you have difficulty hearing on a mobile phone?

        Never.

        2. How often have you seen this portrayed on TV and in film?

        Never noticed.

        Maybe you should get a decent phone.

        Rik
        • 1. How often do you have difficulty hearing on a mobile phone?

          Never.


          First day as a cell phone owner, I assume?

          2. How often have you seen this portrayed on TV and in film?

          Never noticed.

          Maybe you should get a decent phone.


          Maybe you should quit being so condescending. This is a common complaint among cell phone owners, especially in the United States, which being a UK resident is obviously not something you can understand.

          I've owned around 10 different cell phones in my life, from the top of the lin
    • A very good question - I use a Nokia 5110 from 1998 to make phone calls and text, its battery lasts for over a week. Surely new phones last longer than my six year old technology?

      If a modern cell phone cannot remain mobile for more than a week then it is not worth having.

      There is a reason why old farts like me dont early adopt flashy new technology anymore like they used to in their youth - its because a lot of flashy new technology is flaky.

      What worries me is that it has become the norm for cell phones
  • by kaleco ( 801384 ) <greig.marshall2@ ... GERcom minus cat> on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:42AM (#10741516)
    Don't use your megapixel camera phone to take pictures of school busses. You'll get lynched.
  • No important stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @09:43AM (#10741520) Homepage Journal
    Those were pretty pictures of cars and keyboards. Troll mode off, but who cares about subtle gradations of color in a telephone? I'd rather know about:
    • How much memory do they have for images?
    • How long do the batteries last?
    • Do they have a firewire port, or just lame USB 1.0?

      and most importantly

    • Are they decent phones?

    • Finally someone who sees the big picture. I mean, cameras in phones are just another gadget toy. The primary use is still a phone. It's like the little shitty games (snake, dots, whatever) that are in the phones. Slashdot doesn't put a front page review of 'Snakes' up for all of us telling us that the graphics are poor, and the replay value is zero. That's because the games are just something to do while you're bored, not the primary use of the phone.

      The same goes for the web browsing capabilities of
    • try visiting the rest of the site. all the info you ask about is there
    • The review isn't of how good of phones they are, or even how useful their camera functions are. The review is solely of the picture quality of said phones, and it does a fairly good job at doing so.
    • Those were pretty pictures of cars and keyboards. Troll mode off, but who cares about subtle gradations of color in a telephone? I'd rather know about:

      * How much memory do they have for images?

      Why would you need that memory when it doesn't take decent pictures to begin with?

      * How long do the batteries last?

      Good question.

      * Do they have a firewire port, or just lame USB 1.0?

      and most importantly
      * Are they decent phones

      Hmm, USB 2.0 would do as well, it is just a lot more

  • Man, even the Coral Mirror [nyud.net] can't fetch site content so it can do its job.

    Why can't submitters put mirrors up before before the actual slashdotting? Mirror sites can't do their job when the worse has alread happened!

  • this test isn't too meaningful. look at the 4th page and its just a case of opinion. i prefer the look of the S700i to the S65 but the S65 'won' that round. i guess its an ok test to get a basic idea. like not to buy the V710 if you want to use a 'decent' camera.
  • by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:08AM (#10741595) Journal
    I think the most intriguing use of camera phones is for OCR. Of course to make it work you'd need WiFi or WiMax rather than regular wireless telephone protocols. But if you could stitch together a few shots per page and quickly upload them to your home computer form the library, well that would be interesting.
    • The resoloution is very poor. Consider taking a photo of an A4 page (210*297mm) with a 3 megapixel camera. This gives 1456 pixels across the short edge of the page (ignoring the difference in aspect ratios - digicams are usually 4:3, A4 paper (or any of the A-series sizes) are 1:sqrt(2)) which works out at 7 pixels/mm, or 176 dpi. Compare that with a scanner, which is typically 300 or 600 dpi.

      And, even if you did get the resolouting by stitching multiple photos together, the lighting would be no where
  • Can I get a phone that is just a phone please? Or a phone that excels in phone-based things? I've yet to see a cell phone that lets me block numbers at the phone level, rather than PAYING to have a number blocked with the service provider. No I don't want a crappy digital camera on my phone. No I don't want a crappy music player on my phone. No I don't want a crappy web browser on my phone. I WANT A PHONE THAT IS A PHONE. Jesus christ.
    • Can I up the ante?

      I want a phone that works perfectly as a phone.

      Within my coverage area, I want perfect reception and clarity; I want multi-tower switching *while* in a long phone call, etc.
    • by slamb ( 119285 ) * on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:50AM (#10741729) Homepage
      I recommend the LG VX3200. It does not have:
      • A camera
      • A web browser
      • Games

      But does have:

      • A prefix search of your contact list one button away from the home screen. Some phones hide this away, and it's the most important feature. Other phones I've seen have a substring search - if you hit 'C', you get every entry with a C in it, rather than moving to the ones starting with C. And this one lets you enter more than one letter in your search; some start a new search if you enter a second letter. Handy if you have lots of numbers.
      • Several phone numbers for each entry: Home, Home2, Office, Office2, Mobile, Mobile2, Pager, Fax, Fax2, None. Handy; for a lot of people I have an apartment number, a parents' house, a cell phone, and an office number. My last phone only let me enter three numbers per contact, and I had to name one of those something completely inappropriate. (Calling the parents' house a "Fax" number or something.) I wish it let you customize the labels, but oh well. The only phones I've seen that do that are these huge Motorola things.
      • A flip cover. Protects the display, provides longer battery life by allowing the display to shut off, and makes good UI sense - never worry about forgetting the key lock and dialing numbers from your pocket.
      • A speakerphone. Handy if you have to call tech support and end up on hold forever.
      • Analog service.
      • Good battery life.
      • Caller ID-based ring tones, so you can know who's calling right away. (And they're downloadable, I think.)
      • A "recent calls" thing a button away. Hit send-send from the home and you call the last person in your dialed, received, or missed calls.
      • An alarm clock. The only non-phone tool I use all the time. Handier than a true alarm clock because you can set it quickly with the numeric keypad. Plus the act of flipping open the phone and hitting the button is a little less reflexive than hitting a huge snooze button, so it's more likely to wake me up.
      • A speed dial, one two or three digits. Either hold down the last one or hit send. I don't use it much, though - I can never remember which number is which.
      It's a good phone and fits me well. LG really has the best UI. My only real complaints are:
      • Color display. It just isn't as high-contrast as the BW ones, and they didn't help it by having the reception and battery life icons so tiny. They also could have saved some cost and battery life by going BW. But not much battery life - the display is usually off, anyway.
      • As mentioned above, no user-enterable labels for numbers. I'd like it to say "Apartment", "Mom's house", "Grundy Center", "Hospital", "Court St.", etc.
      • A huge data port on the bottom with a pull-off cover you'll inevitably lose if you use the port. Unfortunately, the car charger plugs into this, so you probably will. Less waterproof that way.

      It has a few other features (schedule, voice memo, notepad, ez tip calc, full calculator, world clock) that I never use but someone else might find helpful. And a couple stupid "my pictures" / sounds / animations things. Also voice dialing.

      I don't see any way to block numbers at the phone level, though. Sorry. Similarly, it'd be nice if a phone could have contact entries that don't show up in the main phonebook. I admit it, I've got a few phone numbers in there that I keep only to know I shouldn't answer the phone if they call. I want to see the name on the caller ID, but I don't want to have to scroll past it. I'm picky about the number of button presses to make a phone call. It has contact groups, but the main phonebook always shows all groups. You have to hit several more buttons to see just one.

      • An N-Gage.

        The N-Gage has prefix search, several phone numbers for each entry (completely customizable with thumbnail and full picture, too), speakerphone (no side talking required!), no analog service (GSM rocks, baby!), good battery life, caller ID-based ring tones (which can be a recording with the mic, a midi, an mp3, etc), a "recent calls" button away (hit dial from the main telephone screen), an alarm clock/PDA calendar, and speed dial.

        Unlike your complaints, the reception and battery life icons are
        • Sounds decent, but this one is a deal-breaker for me:
          no analog service (GSM rocks, baby!)

          The phone's gotta be CDMA + analog for me to use it. CDMA is what we've got around here, and if I wander around Iowa, sometimes there's only analog service. If I'm 30 miles out on a bike ride through Amish country and crash, I want to be able to call home.

          Plus my phone was cheaper. $50 after rebate. I think if you sign up at the right time, they give it away.

      • It also has one of the highest emitted doses of radiation; google for it.
        • It also has one of the highest emitted doses of radiation; google for it.

          That would concern me if there were any reproducible evidence that RF radiation harms humans. Since there isn't, I'll just take it to mean that the thing has good reception.

    • How the hell these people get modded '5, Insightful' is beyond me. There are a number of these comments modded high already.

      This is Slashdot, News for Nerds. We like gadgets. We don't generally say 'I wish they'd stop adding new features to things, my calculator twenty years ago worked fine!'. We don't expect to see a review of an 80s style calculator making the slashdot frontpage, unless of course the editors are having a really bad day ;)

      If you want a phone that is just a phone, go to your local pho
      • Everyone has their opinion, and some people share that opinion.. obviously.

        A rant like yours is just a bitch. And here's my bitch: after I got on AT&T last year, every time I go into their stores, they don't have anything that looks as sturdy as my current v60i. I share some of the sentiments of people here - a phone is a phone, gimme features that make my life better, like pda style functions, not cameras.
      • This is Slashdot, News for Nerds. We like gadgets. We don't generally say 'I wish they'd stop adding new features to things, my calculator twenty years ago worked fine!'.

        If they neglected the basic calculator functions while adding the new features, I expect we would generally say that. See my sibling post to yours for specifics of why I like my simple phone, but broadly it's because it has a good UI that makes it possible to make calls, see who has called me, etc. with few button presses. That's not true

    • Erm. the last 3 phones I have had could do this I think. 7610, 6800 and an ericsson. I think it can only block ones it can see. Withheld numbers get through ( I may be wrong ).
      You can always set a 'muppets' ringtone so you know that a call is from someone you would prefer to ignore.
      The new phones have a little OS in them so maybe you could delete all the junk you don't like. Or at least hide them.
      I never use the organiser functions or the browser but it doesn't bother me thaat they are there.
      Many peopl
    • by ajs ( 35943 ) <[ajs] [at] [ajs.com]> on Saturday November 06, 2004 @01:26PM (#10742382) Homepage Journal
      Can I get a phone that is just a phone please?

      Not trivially, no. There are many reasons for this. First, "just a phone" is a term that is in flux. Certainly 15 years ago, that meant a device that was attached to a wall either directly or by a short cord, and converted your face-noise to analog signal on a copper wire.

      So, what you're saying now is you want a wireless phone-like device. Then you say you want to block numbers... well that's not really a phone-like thing at all. Certainly not a phone-like thing when measured against what phones have done for the last 50 years!

      You're asking for a new device. While your wish list is nice, to ignore the wish list of the vast majority of other customers would be neglegent on the part of the management of the cell phone manufacturers.

      No I don't want a crappy digital camera on my phone.

      And yet, the idea of camera phones has caught on like wildfire, and is one of the single most popular modifications to the basic cell phone since user-downloadable ring-tones. I'm not saying you're wrong not to want this, but to act as if the industry is going off half cocked and ignoring the customer is putting blinders on to who the customer really is.

      No I don't want a crappy music player on my phone. No I don't want a crappy web browser on my phone.

      Granted, implementations of these features have been lame to say the best.

      What the world really IS waiting for is a decent, way to manage contacts. Now that phones are portable, we NEED a way to have our numbers move with us as trivially as that note-pad that we used to keep by the phone pre-cell. Replacing a phone should not be traumatic, but because of the proprietary formats involved it IS. You usually need a for-pay version of Outlook on Windows just to read the data from your phone. This makes no sense.

      I WANT A PHONE THAT IS A PHONE. Jesus christ.

      Once again, define phone.
  • by irikar ( 751706 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:28AM (#10741650)
    Cell phone companies (and I work for one of them) are desperately trying to make money out of their cellular phone. One of the huge market is teenagers because they tend to want to differentiate themselves and they are willing to pay for that new and cool ring tone or SMS feature, or game, or color and what not.

    I personally couldn't have imagined someone paying for a ring tone on his/her cell phone; and the ring tone business is apparently worth billions of dollars these days. Those who saw this coming were quite clever I guess, but isn't it sad that people are spending money on crappy MIDI stuff for their cell phone?

    So cell phone companies pack their devices with close-to-useless features like MIDI player for polyphonic ring tones (many people at my work call it polymorphic 'cause that's what they remembered of C++ ;) ), cameras, pictures, games, and what not.

    But seriously, don't you think the majority of people will use those extra features a few times only, mostly to show others how cool and different their new toy is and then they'll forget about them because they are what they are: useless for a cell phone.

    I wonder how this confusion will end? The difference between your average PDA and a cell phone is what now? They both play MP3s, take pictures, are organizers, are wireless cell phones, support bluetooth, are WIFI enabled, can act as vibrators; but generally speaking, they do one thing hopefully right: your PDA is probably (hopefully) a better organizer than the organize feature on your cell phone; the rest is useless crap designed to differentiate the device on the market.

    When we received our new cell phone at work, everyone, for about a week, was spending countless hours on ring tones, taking pictures, playing that stupid mini putt game, enabling Bluetooth and wandering around for another Bluetooth soul willing to answer, etc., etc.

    Now; yeah sure everyone has his/her own "personal" ring tone differentiator, but the damn cell phone is used a cell phone, the extra features are now what they are: useless.

    • yeah sure everyone has his/her own "personal" ring tone differentiator...

      The funniest thing about it is when people change their ring tones so often that they're never sure what they are, and everybody reaches for their phones anyway...
    • The best use for phone cameras I have seen was at a part supplier, an electrician sent his apprentice to pick up a blue whatsit like they got 3 months ago the apprentice lined up every thing we had that could match the despription and sent the pictures to someone on site to compare to the existing unit. He reckoned he did things this way a lot and it made life much easier.
    • And what is the problem with this beyond being a time killer? I like my Audiovox 8900 that does all this, for the very reason that is does do all those.

      I like being able to determine how quickly I get off my ass to pick up the phone by the ringtone. I like having a camera in my phone when a pair of boobs fall out at an unexpected time.

      I hope this trend continues so that I can get a cheap phone with BT and Organizer functions here in backwards ass North Dakota.
    • The difference between your average PDA and a cell phone is what now? They both ... can act as vibrators ...
      I haven't heard any reports like this [theregister.co.uk] for PDAs yet actually.
  • Schoolbus ? i thought all camera phones were made just for taking voyeur pictures
  • by Ianoo ( 711633 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:52AM (#10741743) Journal
    A lot of people come out with comments like "I want a phone that's just a phone" or "I don't need/want these features when I can get better separate units that do the same thing". This is really silly.
    I don't know what the American market is like, but here in the UK, I got a Nokia 7610 for 50GBP (that's less than $90) on a very reasonable contract (500 free minutes per month and other goodies for 25GBP / $40 pm).
    Although I have a much better PDA (Palm Tungsten T3), and a much better digicam (Canon Powershot A80) and a much better MP3 player (iPod Mini), guess how much of the time I'm carrying all of these around with me? Practically ziltch. But, I do almost always have my phone with me, 24/7.
    So, the times I've forgotten my camera, the megapixel camera on the phone is great for a quick and dirty picture of something interesting or important. When I don't have room for my PDA, the phone is great for recording a memo or checking my diary (I sync both with the same desktop PIM, and it mostly works). It's also cool that when I don't have time to pack the iPod, I can take a short journey and still listen to almost a whole album at 128kbps from the 64MB SD card.
    The phone is a great phone by itself, with excellent contact management, call management, logging and other features. Since it was so cheap, these extras are essentially bonuses. It's also hardly bigger or heavier than a "normal" cellphone. It also has the trademark Nokia battery life of several days. This is quite sufficient even when on the road, especially since every third person you meet seems to have a universal Nokia charger stowed away somewhere.
    I look forward to the day when I can put my PDA, iPod and camera in the drawer forever, and I think we might only be a few years shy of it. Until then, I will enjoy my phone and its extras, using the additional separate devices when I want better quality.
    And thanks to my contract, I get a brand new smartphone every year.
    • I take the avenue that if the service providing companies don't lose as much money on the cell phones, I won't be over charged as much in these invented "fees". Of course there is still the issue that adding new features gives cell phone companies an excuse not to fix the old ones. I personally would never want a camera phone but it looks like I might have no choice in the near future. My current phone lasts about a week and a half on a battery charge, but it looks like whatever my next one is won't last
    • by ajs ( 35943 ) <[ajs] [at] [ajs.com]> on Saturday November 06, 2004 @01:35PM (#10742431) Homepage Journal
      Let's go a step further. I don't want a phone! I want a house and a car and a computer and whatever else... and they should all have build-in phones. We should stop thinking of the phone as a device with low-end appliances built in. We should be building phones into the best-of-breed appliances. Why shouldn't an iPod come with a cell phone build in? Reduces the number of items you have to carry by one, and doesn't even require a form-factor change.

      Why not have that base-unit for your wireless keyboard and mouse also provide a (physically switched, thank you very much) speakerphone that speaks VoIP? Why do I need a second device on my desk?

      Why should a car ever ship without a built-in phone?

      Of course, much of the reason for this is financial. The cell companies fight hard against making it easy to move your phone between services, and if appliances came with built-in phones, people would demand that they be able to sign up or not sign up for a service of their choosing at their leisure, otherwise it's more of an extra fee, and they'll prefer devices without phones.

      I think that can be overcome, though, regardless of how much the industry likes it.
      • Two reasons:
        1) the tech is still developing so fast, it would make things obsolete very fast. I drive a 1991 SAAB, and wonder what it would be like if it had a 1991 mobile phone, probably useless.
        2) I do not like all this integration, if my fictional 1991 SAAB mobile phone would break, I suppose I could get another one at $2000 from their spare parts service in Trollhattan. No thank you, the spare parts I can not find second hand are expensive enough as it is.

        Only if the tech has matured enough that a mobi
        • Do you have a CD player in your 1991 Saab? If you don't could you get one for it? Do you not want a CD player integrated into your car for the reasons you state above? Would a phone be any different? In 1991 car CD players were crap. I would never want one of those in my car today. They skipped all the time and often had components that broke easily.

          But having an old car doesn't mean having an old CD player.
          • Thank you for asking.
            As a matter of fact, yes I do, and it only has problems reading some CD-r's, but otherwise the system is still very usable. It's some quite expensive Pioneer system (sub-woofer, remote control, removable face, 4 individualy adjustable speakers, RDS) I bought the car for 2000 euro, but remember it was about 35.000 new (1991 prices).
            It never skips, I can do speedbumps at 50km/h that make my friends players skip at 30, but not the Pioneer. I only regret that the original buyer did not buy
            • Great, so you've solved your own problem. Nicely done.

              I don't see a problem with convergence in anything that you've said (actually, it sounds like a advertisment).
              • My original point was:
                I would not like phone functions build into my car/toaster/etc. because I think the tech is immature and will be obsolete before the car/toaster/etc.
                Car radio's are mature to the point that I can still use my 13 year old CD-player perfectly well. Next to that the format is standardized. I could swap my 13 year old system for a new one and vice-versa without problems.
                I can not find a car-kit for my 5 year old mobile phone, let alone 13 years from now.
                I am willing to consider this kind o
    • I guess that's nice (assuming you're really talking for somewhere near £25 worth a month), but some of us has to pay for that device as much as it actually costs - which is about 500 EUR.

      Would you really be as happy about the fluff features if that's the amount you'd have to shell straight out? That's a whole lot of money for me, and many other folks... and the portion of useless camera in that is certainly not insignificant.
  • *cries* (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <spam@BALDWINpbp.net minus author> on Saturday November 06, 2004 @10:57AM (#10741764)
    For the love of god, I just want a phone that can actually make a phone call from within my apartment. Or even on my patio.. or down at the corner.

    I have T-Mobile (work phone) and have 0 signal within a 1/8th mile radius of my apartment. AT&T, Cingular, MetroPCS, and Sprint are all terrible around here as well. Only phone that gets "2 bars" is a Verizon one, and even that's spotty.
    I do *not* live in the boonies. I'm in an east SF bay area with over 250,000 people. Definately not BFE.

    Instead, we get ringtones, games, and flippin *cameras* that take lousy photos.
    GSM seems to suck in the US. I rarely had coverage problems with my old TDMA phone.
    • Re:*cries* (Score:3, Informative)

      by marsu_k ( 701360 )
      GSM seems to suck in the US.
      Apparently yes. But that doesn't mean the situation is similiar in the rest of the world. I get full coverage (in Finland) in cities, and even in rural areas you can certainly make or recieve calls, albeit with a lower quality. And this country is certainly not densely populated. So blame your provider.
    • Blame your neighbors, who are probably lobbying in NIMBY campaigns to prevent more cell towers from being put up. As more users sign onto the cells, the coverage area of an individual cell shrinks, and wireless carriers need to add more towers. But it's extremely difficult to add more towers nowadays thanks to lawsuits and the like from people who fear what they don't understand.

      --bdj

      • Blame your neighbors, who are probably lobbying in NIMBY campaigns to prevent more cell towers from being put up.

        I agree with this. Berkeley is one cities [berkeleydailyplanet.com] that has been fighting cell antennas tooth and nail. I don't suppose the original poster lives in that East Bay city. Does he?

    • I live in the East Bay, San Leandro, and dropped Cingular which had no signal at my house. I switched to Verizon, but is marginal. I live close to the water in a densely populated area. But, it seems to be just at the range limit of the existing coverage areas.
  • by Johnny318 ( 669822 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @11:00AM (#10741776)
    Three points:

    1. Cellphones come in different models, some with cameras, some without. Happily, the ones WITHOUT cameras are usually cheaper, which is great for those that don't want "extra stuff I will never use."

    2. Cameras on a cellphone are extremely useful because it's WITH YOU all the time, and with relative ease you can send a picture from where you took a picture to an arbitrary email address. Even on the low-end .3megapixel you can take useful pictures that may serve a purpose.

    3. The last thing you do before you die is crap your pants.

    My eyes ache from rolling to the back of my head whenever I click on a slashdot cellphone article, because it always goes down this road (and yes, this post is part of that).
  • Are these the ones where taking the picture and sending it requires so much power that you are required to change the battery halfway through the shutter click?
  • by vijayiyer ( 728590 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @12:53PM (#10742174)
    People have already mentioned why camera phones aren't up to snuff. I have a diminutive Canon SD200 which I love. I wish I could find an equally good phone. Instead, all the phones with bluetooth seem to also have a camera built in and therefore suffer in size and weight. Not everyone wants a mediocre phone/camera/camcorder/mp3 player, and I don't think it's possible due to ergonomics to make something that does all of those well.
  • School Bus? (Score:3, Funny)

    by musselm ( 209468 ) on Saturday November 06, 2004 @01:34PM (#10742428)
    Sadly, none of the phones seem to be able to perfectly capture a mere school bus in image form.

    Man, that's a real drag. I can't tell you how often I need to capture a mere school bus in image form. Not going to buy one of these phones.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    I love my Nokia 7610.. I've heald the LG, and the Nokia is definately a step above the others.

    Why Symbian? It gives developers more access to the phone than Java does. Things like:

    -Fullscreen Caller ID
    -Blacklist (sends anyone on it to voicemail)
    -CallCheater (adds background noice to your call)
    -Plays all N-Gage games
    -3rd party IM program that supports voice & sending pictures over IM
    -watch downconverted movies in widescreen
    -NES emulator
    -Sega Genesis Emulator w/perfect speed

    That's just a tiny list o
  • I'm not that interested in a phone that can take pictures.

    Now if someone would start selling cameras that can make a phone call... I'm there!
  • Many people deride camera phones, however I too have a 7610, and I'm completely in awe of its abilities.

    Each raw image goes through 4 processing stages before it is displayed on screen or captured. I've seen technical articles detailing the condition of the image at each stage, and the transformation from unintelligible blur to relatively clear image is astounding.

    The image processing that takes care of white balance in particular is striking. On many occasions I've gone from very dark to very light con

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