Over on ZDNet, David Coursey wrote an article called Why Camera Phones are So Darned Popular where he picked up on the idea, floated by the mobile phone industry, that camera phones are the fastest growing segment in the history of the technology product market. Through his piece, Coursey wonders why this is so, and offers his own ideas about it. He says:
I think phones with built-in cameras are one of those technologies that people adopt not because they choose to but because it’s hard not to. If the camera functionality is essentially free, why not buy a handset with it, even if you don’t really want or need it?
I’m taking a different angle on this. Rather than assume that camera phone buyers don’t care about what they buy, or are just tools of the electronics industry and popular culture, I’ll assume that you’re looking for information on the best camera phones and talk about why I think some of them are better than others.
I did get something useful out of Coursey’s article, a list of camphones that users are happy with. One of them is the Sanyo SCP5300. The camera on this phone produces VGA images of up to 640 x 480 pixels. That resolution is similar to the LG VX6000 that I discussed earlier this week.
The way that Sprint PCS handles distributing pictures from this phone is a little unusual. Actual pictures only get sent phone-to-phone if the receiving phone is also part of the Sprint network. If the phone is on another service, or you send the picture to an email address, the recipient gets a URL on a Sprint server from which to retrieve the photo.
Owners have consistently given the SCP5300 high marks. It’s been on the market for almost a year now, so problems with it should be well understood by now. This is probably the best camera phone available for the Sprint PCS system right now, and gives the VX6000 a run for its money.