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

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.

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: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...

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? :)

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."

Calls ...

[ReidMaynard]

from strip clubs will never be the same.