Camera phone
Since the 2G era, the digital camera has been fused with the mobile phone and giving users a way to take still pictures and store it in their phones for viewing. The first camera phone was sold in Japan, not surprising since most major technological breakthroughs are made in this country. Sharp, which is a leading service provider in Japan and a major electronic manufacturer, and J phone launched the J-SH04 in November of 2000. It is considered as the first of its kind with a low resolution lens for capturing digital images. Soon after, many manufacturers and service providers released different camera phone models and by the end of 2003, an estimated 10 million camera phones has been manufactured. By 2004, higher resolution camera phones with at least 1.2 mega pixel lens has started to pop out of the market. Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorolla and Nokia have started to develop phones with this technological capability that is now available in all regions. From 2005 up to now, significant changes have been made to the camera phone. We see camera phones with at least 7 mega pixels lens, giving the standard digital cameras a run for their money. Other feature includes auto focus and digital zoom.
With this added feature to mobile phones, people must not be confused on the phones main function. The camera serves only a secondary purpose for the users and even though its properties are very close to stand alone digital cameras, the quality of the pictures is still very different. Manufacturers has to consider the size of the phone and the other features that they want to include in it, thus giving up quality in optics in favor of the demand for lighter and smaller phones. Also remember that pictures are stored in the phones memory. May it be the internal or the expanded memory, it still has to share space with other features and applications. Another thing to be considered is the power that this feature consumes. Standard digital cameras have built in a flash thats why they have to use lithium ion batteries to power the bulbs which can not be achieved through the cell phones battery. Though some phones have flashes, its light intensity has to be limited because of the power it consumes and is recommended to be used in well lighted areas. The camera phone is best suited for outdoors photo taking as it utilizes natural light to enhance the picture and coupled with the phones capability of sending picture files through MMS, it is the fastest way to send out pictures to your friends and loved ones.
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