RSSSony Ericsson to debut 8.1 megapixel camera phone
By Tim Conneally | Published June 17, 2008, 5:47 PM
Sporting a design and feature list not unlike Nokia's N95 and N96, Sony Ericsson's C905 Cybershot blows Nokia's devices away in one area: picture resolution.
Sony Ericsson officially announced today its Cybershot C905 handset which had been shown through "leaks" last week. Offering support for GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 2100, Sony Ericsson has announced that the C905 will be made available in select markets as early as the fourth quarter of this year.
Evinced by the Cybershot name, this device is being marketed for its camera functions. In addition to the banner 8.1 Megapixel count, the C905 offers a xenon "real camera" flash, face detection, image stabilization, autofocus, 16x digital zoom, red-eye reduction, support for print sizes up to A3, and GPS-enabled geotagging features.
But for all that marketing, one missing element is data about the lens. While blogs have speculated that Sony Ericsson would include a Zeiss lens, mainly because they have before, there's no indication from the data we've been given about the lens' actual manufacturer or specifications. BetaNews has pending requests with Sony Ericsson, and once we do learn the facts, we'll share them with you.
The built-in geotagging functionality is another of the banner features of the C905, as interest in devices providing this service has been strong this year. Among mobile phones, it is a feature still limited to the higher end of the pricing spectrum.
Onboard memory lags a bit behind its Nokia N96 competitor, which has upwards of 16 GB of storage. The C905 comes with just 2 GB on Memory Stick Micro storage, but attempts to supplement that somewhat by including a USB adaptor for frequent transfer, and support for DLNA Wi-Fi and TV-out connections, so pictures can be viewed on the user's television.
Non-photo related features include A2DP stereo Bluetooth, Sony Ericsson's trademark TrackID and PlayNow music services, sound recorder, 3D J2ME games, FM radio, video calling, as well as limited PIM and Email functions.
Though it's been almost two years since Samsung first showed off its 10-megapixel handset at CeBit, and Broadcom developments could make 12-megapixel phones a reality as early as the first half of 2009, Sony Ericsson's new Cybershot will still be one of the highest resolution offerings in consumer handsets.
Another missing data item is the MSRP, and once we learn the price, we'll let you know that as well.
Increasing the number of megapixels without increasing the actual sensor size only neans one thing: IMAGE NOISE! Instead of trying to impress uneducated consumers by cramming more megapixels into the same tiny little sensor, they should be leaving the number of megapixels alone and working to increase the size of the sensor! As smart as these companies are, you would think that at least one of them would clue into this one simple fact and actually ACT on it in their products! If you actually saw how incredibly tiny the image sensor was on this camera, you wouldn't believe it.
Score: 0
|The numbers game means nothing when the photos still look bad. So they beat Nokia and Samsung with a large number of pixels, but all of the photos are unusable, what then?
Kodak recently promoted their new phone-sized sensor that gives quality like a point-and-shoot camera. That seems quite a bit more useful, unless of course, you really don't care about quality and you're just trying to impress someone with your ummm "knowledge" of digital camera technology.
Score: 0
|We are eagarly waiting for this phone when it will launch in our market.
http://www.maharashtradi...com/busby-seo-challenge
Score: 0
|Digital zoom because they cannot integrate large optics into a small and compact cell phone. Plus digital zoom doesn't eat up all that much power for optics motors. Also by cropping images you can get lossless zoom at expense of resolution but i don't know if this mobile is usuing it.
But again anyone who wants to make some real pictures buys some super compact digital camera like Olympus MJU series, Sony DSC-W2xx or something from the IXUS line...
Mobiles with around 2Mpix, basic integrated flash and some form of focusing are way enough for most of needs. You usually need them to quickly snap a price and specifications at stores, snap schedule of company work time or something similar. I found phone cameras very useful for such stuff so you don't have to remember it or write it down on paper.
But if you want to make pictures of some special moment it's really better to have compact digital cameras mentioned above just for such task. Images are like day and night even at same resolution. I'm quiet sure any of the above cameras can eat this mobile one left hand...
Score: 0
|As previously mentioned, digital zoom (compared with optical zoom) is near worthless if anything other than an FX generator is needed - as accurate it 'ain't'!
If it can't be done correctly, they would be better leaving off a mediocre feature and taking the 17 cents that goes toward a mediocre feature and putting it in to further refining the quality it DOES offer - as in optics, image stabilization, or the bane of digital cameras - low light performance.
I don't need a camera that does 10 things in a half @ssed manner, I would prefer a camera that did 3 things well.
Score: 0
|8 megapixels... great.
Digital zoom... utter utter crap. When will manufacturers realise that digital zoom is just an awful feature that takes poor quality images.
Megapixels *may* mean your camera phone images are better and more detailed, but it's not everything.
and such a pity that Sony still insists on flogging the memory stick pro/duo format... Awful format that ONLY sony support and makes memory so much more expensive than SD/MMC or even Compact Flash.
Score: 0
|"16x digital zoom"
Wow, whats the point in that?
Sounds nice but far as we know it could still take crappy pictures kind of like my current sony phone but it would be kinda cool if it turns out to be good.
Score: 0
|I wonder when will this hype about mpixels in a phone stop? I mean, picture are and always will be crappy, but for some reason people act like they are going to use phone cameras to document important events, which they won't. So WHY all the hype then? I mean, should anyone really care how many MP does his/her phone camera has?
Score: 0
|Why not? With the MP this high they are quickly on their way to replacing your digital camera altogether! Find something awesome on a trip. No problem bust out the phone and take a picture. I use the camera on my phone all the time. It would be nice if it had better quality like the phone above.
Score: 0
|Convergence is fine, but this idea that megapixels is sufficient to insure higher quality , as mentioned above, is nonsense.
Optics and other issues are of increasing importance and then price constraints become a significant issue. But they can enlarge their pictures! Whoopee!
One wonders if image stabilization and acceptable low light performance works as well.
All in all, functional convergence and commodity priced devices is where the market is headed.
Score: 0
|