More Cellular Phone Convergence?

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Korea Times reports that Samsung President Lee Ki-tae, in a recent meeting with technology analysts, has demonstrated a cellular phone with a built-in 8 megapixel camera. The phone, called the SPH-V8200, is the bigger brother of their five-Megapixel SCH-S250 that was launched last November. Unfortunately, that phone along with the upcoming version will only be available in Asia. Source: TG Daily

Recently, San Mateo-based Future Image forecast that 5 out of every 6 digital cameras sold this year would be in a camera phone. Now, whether or not this is by choice or simply because the chosen phone has a camera that comes with it … is a matter of conjecture. Additionally, we posted a story about standalone PDA sales being affected by converged devices … those that combine connectivity with PDA functionality. Will the same thing happen to digital cameras?

We Say: Since this is only supposed to ship in Asia, can we rant about the state of the U.S. cellular phone market and how we always seem to get things late? The Nokia 9300, for example, has been available for a year in Europe and is only now showing up here. I don’t believe camera phones, even with higher resolutions, will severely impact digital camera sales … it’s harder to frame an image on a camera phone, for one thing. However, it’s a lot easier to carry one device that two or three, so you might see a lot more casual photographers using these, only opting for the full-blown camera for planned “events”.
Technorati Tags: RealTechNews, Cellphones, cameraphones, gadgets, PDA