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Samsung Producing 5 Megapixel Camera Phone
Shippy writes "Straight from Yahoo News on the other side of the pond comes a story about Samsung's latest creation: a five-megapixel camera phone. This is pretty cool considering it's a pretty big jump from the camera phones that are currently available (many max out around 1.5 megapixels). It's expected to be available by the end of the year, but only in South Korea. I doubt it'll take long for a domestic carrier to pick up on this hot new toy." Other readers submitted a closeup picture and the company press release.
I thought that, too... until I read the PC World article... seems that there's been some advances in charging a small xenon strobe that doesn't eat a lot of battery power...
Of course, if you're taking so many flash pics with your phone that you're killing the battery, maybe you should invest in a real digicam...
The press release says that the phone is, in part, the result of a collaboration with Pentax, who have some considerable experience in making camera lenses.
I'm studying in Japan this semester, and I've seen tons of phones here far more advanced than those in America. To address your concern, though I don't know about the Samsung camera in particular, alot of the phones here with 1-2 megapixel cameras have flash RAM sockets for storing/retrieving pictures. I would imagine such would be the case for this new camera as well.
And in response to the "it should be imported any time now" comment, I would have to say that's highly unlikely. The phones here that have features we in America wouldn't even dream of. Everyone here has 1-2 mpixel cameras, and some phones even have videophone capabilities; Hell, this one even has a TV/FM tuner built in! I actually held it in my hand, and watched TV on a cell phone. In-freaking-credible. But seeing those kinda phones all over the place here, and nowhere in America, I'd have to say the creation-to-import lag is quite high.