First US Camera/Phone

Ch_Omega writes "According to this article over at Infosync, Sprint has announced that the Sanyo 5300, the first US phone with a built-in camera, will be available on their PCS Vision network in mid-November. It's still only 640x480, but unlike Nokia and Sony Ericsson's models, it will have a built-in optional flash as well. The official press release from Sprint is here."

Comments

Camera/Phone?

[LittleBigScript]

So what does it do? Take pictures of your ear?

"I don't have to read the article, just give me gist of it."
-Homer Simpson

Re:Camera/Phone?

[McFly69]

In the article, it say it will have Zoom: X4 (when QVGA), X4 and X16 (when QQVGA). Perhaps its to zoom inside your ear?

Could make doctor visits more efficent. "Hey Doc, I am using my zoom in cell phone, do you see my ear infection?"

Uh oh

[AriesGeek]

Now I guess the 1-900 sex lines will have to actually hire real women... and good looking ones at that! :)

Re:Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I saw this on google news yesterday: A British company is working on delivering porn on demand to your phone, to keep you entertained as you ride the bus home from work. :) Personally, although I know the camera/phone combo has proven popular in Japan, I think adding cameras to cellphones is rather overrated. One is bound to be sacrificing features on the camera (here, it appears to be resolution) and creating an unholy clutter in the process, although I have to admit the image in the article looks pretty good...

Sidekick

[Syre]

The T-Mobile Sidekick is out now and has a small camera that comes with it and plugs into the headphone port.

Works pretty poorly and takes tiny pics (160x120 I think?), but it is a camera... not quite built-in but a camera nonetheless.

Talk about old

[Apreche]

There were commercials on tv for this over a month ago. It's still cool though. It shows that someone in the us is trying to catch up and replace our old crappy wireless phone tech. I'm still waiting for the all-in-one handheld device. Until then I'm not buying anything.

By all-in-one I mean I want a Digital Camera/Cell Phone/Pager/mp3 player/PDA with wireless networking all in one no bigger than palm-sized package. Yes, I know it will cost a lot of money, but I don't see it as an impossibility. We've already got combinations of the different parts, there just isn't something that encompasses all of them in one device. When someone finally does it, I'm there. Yes, I know about the treo and the clie, they come close, but not close enough.

Re:Talk about old

[Ch_Omega]

"By all-in-one I mean I want a Digital Camera/Cell Phone/Pager/mp3 player/PDA with wireless networking all in one no bigger than palm-sized package."

Hmmm... the Sony Ericsson P800, will have a built in VGA-camera, MP3-player, 32bit OS(Symbian 7.0), bigger thouchscreen than most Palms(320x280x12bit), bluetooth(okay, not exactly WLan), and Sony Memorystick expansion slot. Ofcourse, it won't be released in a while, but it comes pretty close to what you want, doesn't it? :)

New Type of Spying?

[cybrpnk2]

Remeber the old belief (maybe true?) that telephones could be activated without a ring and so serve as covert microphones? With GPS and video cameras in these new cell phones, what sinister new uses could a covert turn-on enable? (Insert obvious p0rn reference here...)

Re:New Type of Spying?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Just put the phone inside an empty potato chip bag when not using it. I'm sure if there's enough demand, a stylish "secure cell phone case" will be sold by someone (probably the Sharper Image) at a ridiculous price. Of course, you could just turn it off, or remove the battery. That works too, but doesn't project that "I'm super cool because I bought a $79.95 object on a whim from an airline catalog" atmosphere.

Re:Does not add up

[Ch_Omega]

The topic is Michael's. What i suggested as topic, was "First US phone with built in digital camera"(or something), something I also state in the text below. I am aware of the allready released Sidekick, Ericsson T68i as well as the Nokia 92xx series, but none of those have a built in camera, and none of them have or support any kind of flash, as far as I know.

GRreeeeat..."Hey, look at me!"

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm talking loudly in public about absolutely nothing! Are you looking?!?"

"Yeah, this movie is pretty fantabulous, hey...hold on a sec, I wanna show you the assclown behind me that keeps tell me to "hush".

Yawn

[DNS-and-BIND]

Japan has had these things for a few years now. It's rather odd at first to see people pointing their cell phones at the buddhas, shrines, etc. It doesn't elicit the same reaction as when you see someone pointing a camera (politely get out of the way, don't step in front of a picture-taker when walking, etc).

It's also very popular for enabling teenage girls to find men willing to pay to have sex with them. You know the leading users of this will use it for pornography, right?

Re:Yawn

[ergo98]

It doesn't elicit the same reaction as when you see someone pointing a camera (politely get out of the way, don't step in front of a picture-taker when walking, etc).

Completely offtopic, however as a personal rule I've given up on trying to avoid the pictures of tourists, etc. It is the picture takers responsibility to find a good location to take a clear picture (and to wait for a clear break in the traffic without impeding everyone else), not the random guy going about his business who needs to worry about it. Most touristy locations have set aside special "picture taking" locations specifically where they don't impede with the movements of everyone else, and if they didn't then too damn bad: Deal with it and find a picture.

Why did this elicit this response? A couple of weeks ago in downtown Toronto I was outside on the side waiting for my wife to get out of a play, when the patrons started streaming out. Out came a family who proceeded to get on one side of a TREMENDOUSLY busy downtown sidewalk, while the photographer got on the other, and these anti-social, inconsiderate, tremendously selfish morons then actually scolded everyone who walked into their picture! A show full of several thousand people, apparently, should wait while they get their picture. Across the street was an empty park with all the same backdrops and more, but that would have required some effort on their part. I've seen the same scene play out in many different places, always with the photographer believing that pointing a camera yields some sort of magic barrier that shouldn't be intruded.

Still no video, still no sale!

[Anonymous Coward]

Until I can actually use these for video purposes (video calls), I am still not buying this service. There is absolutely zero excuses at this point. We have the bandwidth, we have the technology, but we're being restrained from using it for anything other than playing bland, shoddy Tetris clones (with no interactivity) and paying $20.00 a month to download Disney ring tones.

You know what? You can count me out.

Pay-per-kilobyte, indeed.

New Phone

[pulski]

Can you see me now? ...

Good!

What I would like to really see in a cellphone

[suman28]

I would like a regular GPS enabled phone. I don't really care for a camera in a phone mostly because I don't see the need for it. Now, if my phone had a GPS, then I wouldn't have to put up with my wife nagging me about stopping for directions when I am driving

Crap

[kenp2002]

I saw CNN demo of that unit, it was getting 2-4 FPS, was in !Craptacular! (copyright, 2002 you may use the word Craptacular only by giving me a $0.25 licensing fee for each time you read/or use it. That will be 50 cents please!) 256 color over a slow-as-ass (again copyright 2002, same as above but only a 10 cent fee) analog conntection. This product is what I call Craptastic-ware (again copyright 2002, sorry this one has a $10 viewing and $5 re-use fee).

You bill is 10+5+.50+.10= $15.60
Based on the number of people that will read this say: 5000 that means I make a cool $78000

Re:Surprised?

[DNS-and-BIND]

I have noticed that here in Tokyo, there are phones that play a .WAV file for a ring tone. Some people set the ring tone to be the sound of a ringing telephone bell. Rather odd to hear...so long since I've heard a real bell activated by line current to mean "answer the telephone". It's all beeps and boops nowadays.

My next dwelling will have a real Bell System telephone, one of the armored black ones.

Immediate US Security Threat...Tempest Everywhere

[cybrpnk2]

After thinking about this some more, I have gone from amused to extremely worried. A staple in the spy biz is sneaking in the tiny spy camera to photo the secret documents and / or the dead drop of the paper copies of those documents. As of this week, spies among us can just waltz in with their routine cell phones, zap the photos of the Iraq attack plan over the air, and nobody is the wiser. We have just gone from needing Tempest level security around just computers to needing that level of security whereever there is a safe.

Battery Time

[e8johan]

"Expected battery Life: The 5300 will come packaged with a standard battery and an extended battery providing 2.7 hours talk and 10.4 days standby and 3.8 hours talk and 15 days standby, respectively."

And approximately 5 photos in full resolution with flash... :)

Seriously speaking. The limiting factor today for wearable electronics does not seem to be the size or functionality that can be crammed into a palmsized shell but simply the battery time. Either you end up with something heavy, or you end up with something that only works for a couple of hours.

Marketing idea

[dcavanaugh]

Cell phones are never going to be anything other than giveaways to sell the service. Once you start to charge real money, the phones have value and the theft rate makes the whole concept questionable.

Have them distribute a few thousand phones with some prepaid minutes in the DC area, so if anyone sees the sniper, they can grab a photo and transmit to police. Even if nobody uses their phone to catch the sniper, the media will talk about it for a while.

After that, they should have no problem finding real people for a "switch" campaign. "Sure I switched because it was a corporate giveaway, but then I discovered all these neat things I can do with the phone, so I'm keeping it."

Misundastood

[danger42]

Overheard:

"No, honey, I said put the phone up to YOUR _EAR_!."

I've got one already :p

[Anonymous Coward]

I've actually got a phone with a camera on it (yeah, damn us pesky europeans) already, and I have to admit, it's been a damn good buy. The thing about a camera on your phone isn't that it's a particularly good camera, it's that you've always got it handy. The number of random snapshots I end up taking now at moments when I'd normally have said "Damn, I wish I had a camera" is amazing.
(For the record, I've got a Nokia 7650 - http://www.nokia.com/phones/7650 - which I can wholeheartedly recommend.)

Oh, and the camera faces the other direction from your ear. :)

Re:I've got one already :p

[Joel Rowbottom]

For those interested, I put my Nokia 7650 pics up at http://nokia7650.fotopic.net - you should be able to get an idea of quality from there. It's... not very good ;)

The first US phone with a camera is Motorola T720i

[nsushkin]

If you're talking about phones made by a US company, Motorola T720i is probably the first one to come out. Eweek says that it's an 1xRTT Java phone that has an optional camera attachment. If's seems to be available for sale at Verizon's website, however no mention of the camera attachments there. Maybe Eweek confused T720 with A820... Anyway, the relevant links are below.

• Article describing recent phones supporting multimedia
  
• new 2002 handsets from Motorola
  
• Verizon selling T720i
  

Calls ...

[ReidMaynard]

from strip clubs will never be the same.

Ugh...

[BoBaBrain]

A fun toy, but their advertising strategy cannot be condoned.

I think it rocks...

[leeet]

This service started a few years ago when I was in Japan. Like everyone, I got skeptic and said to myself "huh?". But if you think about it, it makes so much sense. How many times you guys went shopping for your wife and got the wrong product? Wouldn't it be simple to take a snap shot and send it to her cell phone? You'd get a confirmation right away. Think convenience... What if you get in a confrontation, accident, etc and want to take a quick picture? Hey this might enable police to find your killer if you get a chance to take a snapshot... Think security... You can think of many usefull things. Don't think of this as a high quality digital camera. You will never get this product for another 2-3 years (if not longer!). Think of it as a "digital post-it"... I never had the chance to use it while in Japan but some of my friends did and I can confirm it *IS* useful... (unlike some of you might think). No wonder why technology is far beyond Europe and Asia, every new product brings so much critisism from US buyers! Be open and accept it as cool, and not as "crap"...

Run your battery down in 30 seconds! Great!

[Fastball]

All these features that Sprint, et all are pitching like games, color displays, et cetera: how much battery are you gonna have left when you want to use your phone for calls? Call me a minimalist, but I don't want a PDA with my phone or Legend of the Return of Kung Fu.

Yes!

[r_j_prahad]

Now I can 'goatse' the soccer mom in the big SUV up in front of me who's not paying attention. All this high tech and somebody somewhere will surely waste it on digital mooning.

Sprint support of Sanyos is crap

[gsfprez]

I stupidly bought the Sanyo 5150 (insert obligatory Eddie van Halen riff here), the precursor to this new phone.

The 5150 has Windows 98-2000-only (does not work on XP) software to allow you to upload images to the phone that act as walpaper or caller id - and no software for any other platform.

So, pray, what do i need to do to hook up the phone to my computer to put in those picts? That's $39.

Oh, did you want to sych up your contacts too? Thats a separate $29. Great. That's $70 just to use the functionality of the phone on top of the price of the phone.

And now, i have two serial connectors for my phone.. just what i always wanted.

And on top of it all - they STILL DON'T HAVE A FSCKING CAR KIT - even though there are menu selections in the phone's menus for car kit options. Ha.

For those that weren't knowing...These Sanyos were J-phone phones that came out in 2000(with a camera on the back. The lens was on one side of the battery release clip, the button, on the other side of the battery release clip) in Japan, but we can't seem to get any of those car kits imported.

I've grown weary of this phone...I use my phone in the car - and without a car kit - i'm forced to have wires all over the place.

Everyone else (besides Sprint) is going with more standard phones - Nokia, S/E, Moto. Everyone else is also going with more "standard" standards... GSM, GPRS, and Bluetooth.

I don't understand why Sprint can't cajole the major makers to make CDMA.... it leaves us that really want great service in the US stuck with "weird" phones.

Re:Immediate US Security Threat...Tempest Everywhe

[American AC in Paris]

As of this week, spies among us can just waltz in with their routine cell phones, zap the photos of the Iraq attack plan over the air, and nobody is the wiser.

Well, seeing as nothing seems to make those drafting the Iraq attack plan any wiser, I'd say it's at least worth a shot...

(Attack Plan of the Day, Hint #48: Rhymes with "Fomb the buck out of them and pet up a suppet.")