To enjoy and maximally utilise your camera phone, you will need to be careful in selecting the right one with the right features otherwise you will find in your hands a device that failed to perform to your expectation, and no more than a toy. It is safe to assume that the higher the cost of your megapixel camera phone, the better the image quality you will get from it. According to a popular saying, "The difference between a man’s toy and boy’s toy is the cost". An expensive camera phone is a man’s toy.

The Bright Side of Using a Camera Phone
A camera comes in handy in any of the following situations:

You ran into an old friend unexpectedly either in a meeting, conference or a social gathering. Within a few seconds, you can have his picture in your camera phone and email it or MMS it to another friend or family member.

You came across an item in a store that you want to describe to a friend who is somewhere else; you can just take the picture with your camera phone and send it as an MMS to your friend.

If your customer is requesting that pictures samples of items should reach him/her immediately, just snap them with your camera phone and send each as MMS to your customer immediately.

You can quickly capture a rare scene (like a celebrity just walked past you) if you have your camera phone with you.

You can play the detective or spy on someone with your camera phone.

If another vehicle hit your car, you can quickly use your camera phone to document the scene before clearing your vehicles for other vehicles to pass.

The Dark Side of a Camera Phone

Spying
Mike even though married still plays around with girls within and without his office. He was so clever that his wife Sade was ignorant of all his escapades. However, luck ran out of him one day when his wife confronted him with a picture she received in her email box. It was a picture of Mike in a certain amorous posture with another woman. The picture was certainly taken during the last end-of-the year party staged by Mike’s company where a lot of good food and wine flowed freely. Obviously, an angry or jealous individual has snapped the picture of Mike with the lady in question, using a camera phone and mailed it to Sade. As to how that individual knows Sade’s email address, it is difficult to say. However, that incident almost cost him his marriage. So, in essence, a camera phone can be used to spy on you without your knowledge.

Identity Thief
Consider the situation when you brought out your credit card in a shopping mall or an internet cafe, and without your knowledge, the guy behind you, who is a credit card identity thief, surreptitiously photographed your credit card details, using his camera phone. That could lead to a serious problem.

Notwithstanding these negative aspects of camera phones, it has come to stay. This can be judged by the way camera phones are being purchased daily, and the way cell phone manufacturers are putting more megapixels into their camera phones.

Before closing this post, I will like to ask you these questions: Do you own a camera phone? What model is it and what do you do with the pictures taken with your camera phone?

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Sony Ericsson W800 2MP Camera Phone

The cell phone is one of the most used gadgets and consumer electronics in the world. It is widely acceptable because it needs no special training to use it. It is equally adaptable to the old and the young, the educated and the illiterates. Nowadays, the cell phone is packing an extra punch by being able to dual-function as a digital camera or camcorder.

Many people are apt to buy a cell phone because of its camera features. There is a thrill of having a mobile handset and a camera all in one device, and within affordable cost. Eventually, many people get disappointed because the quality of the images they get from the camera is less than satisfactory. They failed to consider certain things.

Consult Before Buying
A colleague in my office recently purchased a camera phone and sought my assistance to download to her PC certain pictures she took at a wedding she attended during the weekend.  We connected the serial cable that came with the camera to the PC and Windows XP failed to detect the cable automatically. I asked for the software CD that came with the phone, and she replied that there is none.

I downloaded the driver from the manufacturer’s website, installed and rebooted. Finally, we were able to download the pictures, but they are just too small, more like thumbnails. She wanted to print them, but they came out tiny on the paper. She tried enlarging the pictures, but they end up coming out grainy and unattractive. She had almost a hundred of those pictures on the phone with the hope of printing some and sending them to her friends. You can imagine her disappointment.

VGA or Megapixel?
Before you buy a camera phone, must have in mind what you want to do with the pictures that you are going to be taking. This will determine whether you are buying a phone with a VGA camera or megapixel camera. A VGA camera phone has a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, approximately 0.3 megapixel. Sometimes it can be more or less. For example, the new Nokia 8800 cell phone came with SVGA camera with a resolution of 800 x 600 (about 0.5 MP). Most camera cell phones being sold now have a VGA camera with the exception of a few megapixels one. The popular Nokia 9500, Sony Ericsson P910i are both VGA camera phones.

A megapixel camera phone has a total resolution of at least one million. The higher the resolution, the greater the quality of the image that will be produced. We have quite a handful of cell phones now that are equipped with megapixels cameras. I will mention just a few:

• Nokia 7610/7710 (1152 x 864 pixels) = 1 MP
• Sony Ericsson S700i (1280 x 960 pixels) = 1.3 MP
• Pocket PCs i-Mate JAM & Eten M500 (1280 x 960 pixels) = 1.3MP
• Nokia N90/N91 (1600 x 1200 pixels)= 2 MP
• Sony Ericsson W800/K750i (1632 x 1224 pixels) = 2 MP

 
When a VGA Camera Phone is Suitable
It is all right to buy a VGA camera phone if you just want to do any or combination of the under listed with the picture you will be taking:

• You just want to view the pictures on your phone screen
• You want to send the pictures as MMS to friends and families
• You want to send the pictures as email attachments
• You will be using the pictures as images on your websites
• You want to use the pictures for catalogue of items you sell in your store.

If you will be using the pictures for anything outside any of the above-mentioned, then a VGA camera phone may not be suitable for you.

Why Megapixel?
However, you will need at least a megapixel camera phone if you will be using the pictures for any of the under listed:

• You want to print at least a 4" x 6" size of the picture
• You want to create a digital photo album from the pictures
• You want to make a screen saver out of the pictures.

Any picture less  than a megapixel size will not be suitable for any of the above-mentioned.

Before Buying Your Camera Phone
Before buying your camera phone, it is important to put the following into consideration:

• A megapixel camera phone is much better than a VGA one
  
• A camera phone that has a memory card slot is preferable as that allows you to expand the memory and take more pictures.
• A camera phone with a USB connection is better and faster than a serial connection for transferring your pictures to your PC.

The Bottom Line
A candid advice is that you should buy a phone for the phone’s sake and not because of the camera. Do not buy a phone because of its camera otherwise, you will be setting yourself up for a big disappointment. If you really need a digital camera, then by all means get a very good one and enjoy your photo adventure. A phone will always be a phone no matter how integrated it is. It can never match the capabilities and the qualities of a full-fledged digital camera.   The Nokia N90 2MP Camera Phone 

The Eten M500 Pocket PC