The year 2004 in review: Some cameraphones of note

Camera phones have come a long way from just taking low resolution pictures and allowing users to share them.

This year camera resolution really improved. 1 megapixel camera phones became common in Europe and America, 2 megapixel phones are on their way and South Korea is miles ahead with digital camera-like quality handsets boasting 5 to 7 megapixel resolutions.

This post is not about resolution but a review of some of the most interesting features to have been added to camera phones this year or that are currently in development. Many of these handsets come from Japan or South Korea.

-- NTT DoCoMo Mova 506i series i-mode cameraphones came with an integrated bar code scanner.

-- New LG Camera phones launched with fingerprint identification.

-- An animated download assistant was included in Siemens' new C65 camera phones to help users download ringtones, logos and games.

-- Stroke, press and shake sensors were included in Siemens CX70 EMOTY to help express the users' moods., allowing to better communicate emotions via MMS.

-- Philipps' 775 Scribble Phone came with a touchscreen that lets you draw little messages with a stylus and send them out as images over MMS.

-- Handwriting recognition will be a feature of the Nokia 7710 to launch in Europe and Africa in the first quarter of 2005.

-- LG Electronics new handset (LG-KP3800) will be able to recognize and read characters and numbers on business cards.

-- DoCoMo unveiled a new line of advanced stereo-quality surround sound camera phones with "three-dimensional" surround sound that allow users to hear the whack of a golf ball, clapping of hands, or bells ringing in games.

-- Korea's Curitel P1 launched a Text to Speech Function. It's a bright blue handset which is held sideways.

-- KTF offered a mobile caption service which displays the lyrics of a song played on MP3 phones in real time.

-- LG Electronics launched a camera phone for diabetics with an integrated blood sugar tester.

-- SK Teletech's silver-nano coated cameraphone has a sterilizing function - to keep cell phones clean as a whistle.

-- And Samsung Electronics just introduced in December, a camera phone with a 1.5-gigabyte hard disk drive drive that can store as many as 1,000 photos, the The SPH-V5400. The phone also has an lectronic book function that allows users to read text on the device after downloading it from personal computers or Web sites.

emily | 2:14 PM | Picturephoning 2004 - The Year in Review |
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