Camera phone apparently has become one of the top 10 trends in 2008. Go to those cellphone carrier websites and the first thing you see is “Get free camera phones”, like that little optic on the back (or front) of the cellphone was naturally born with it and any cellphone doesn’t have it has some sort of disability. Camera phone is definitely “the future of multimedia phones”. As I recall some cellphones in 2004 had external cameras that can be plugged into the bottom of the phone body. After that they first had 0.11-megapixel cameras on some of the brands. Then 0.3 and 1.2-megapixel quickly became majority. Things change too fast and now we have 5-megapixel phones on the market and they will soon become the new standard of camera phones. It will also provide enormous markets and opportunities for businesses like, advertising on cellular networks. (The brand new advertising experiment)
But the quality of the pictures is questionable. Although some cellphone producers buy special designed optics from world famous manufacturers like Carl Zeiss to promise buyers the control of quality, or develop very specific camera-like functions such as auto-focus, video streaming/recording/blogging, flash lights, face detection, zoom in and out, and multiple-frame takes, a cellphone is a cellphone (yes, and don’t forget that it makes calls too), actual users often find their 5.0 megapixels don’t work as well as a real 5.0 megapixel, and would rather just have a normal camera in addition to a cellphone with a good service coverage.
(To see the rest of the top 10 trends in 2008 click here)
