Originally published July 24 2005
Samsung camera phone takes unusually good photos
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Samsung's new SPH-a800 phone has a 2-megapixel camera that makes respectable photos, far better than run-of-the-mill camera phones.
Camera phones have quickly evolved from frivolous to functional.
Some of the first images of London's subway bombings were taken by the victims using their cell phones.
The photos were quickly posted on blogs and Internet photo-sharing sites (such as flickr.com), and then snapped up by news organizations.
While cell-phone cameras are convenient, they generally produce crummy photos, not worth printing or saving to a scrapbook.
That makes Samsung's new SPH-a800 phone unique.
It is the first 2-megapixel camera phone available in the United States.
The $500 phone ($350 from Sprint with a two-year activation contract) is a bit like Batman's rival Two-Face.
Its 4 x 6 color prints are more than good enough to send to relatives.
Unfortunately, in low-light conditions, the camera is only passable, and the built-in flash is anemic.
After you hit the button, it takes nearly one second before autofocus does its work and the photo is taken.
Time between shots is a glacial 4.7 seconds.
The phone comes equipped with 32 megabytes of internal memory and can accept TransFlash cards up to 256 megabytes.
So, if you have lots of patience, you can take and save hundreds of photos.
The well-equipped phone also has a built-in MP3 player and what may be the best speech-recognition software yet available for cell phones, VoiceSignal.
As good as this phone is, the a800 is not yet the ultimate unidevice.
Cellphone manufacturers know full well that the world is waiting for one gadget that does it all.
It isn't the best camera for the price, nor the best MP3 player.
One could make a convincing argument that consumers would be better off buying a $100 phone and spending the difference on a good-quality 3- or 4-megapixel pocket digital camera.
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