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Phones with cameras or an age of hybrid devices

Digital cameras became popular only not long ago. But according to analysts boom of such devices will be only in near future. Role of mobile phone in digital camera popularization is very important. Phones with integrated digital cameras could show all advantages of digital photo to an end user. Soon purchasing of mobile phone equipped with camera will be an ordinary event, because almost all handsets will have such feature. The camera doesn’t grealy influence the phone’s price, but it widens its capabilities. Manufacturers indicates that integrated cameras firstly are necessary to take small photos, which can be used as wallpaper of the screen or attached pictures in MMS messages. In usual life these color rendering of these pictures is far from sufficient, as the quality is not high. But we hope there will be changes soon, technology is always developing and quality of cameras of mobile phones will become much better.

Today we can select two classes of mobile phones cameras: integrated and external ones. The main advantage of integrated cameras is compactness, they slightly increase dimensions of the handset, but you gain a possibility to have a photo camera when ever you need and an opportunity to take a picture, though of middle quality. The main problem for developers of integrated cameras is to decrease thickness of camera. Now it defines thickness of the phone. We can compare Nokia 7210/6610 and a similar phone with an integrated camera – Nokia 7250. The last has a larger depth, though length and height are almost the same. You should remember that the lesser the module, the worse quality of taken picture. High-quality lens, shooting controller and matrix can’t locate on one small platform. Developers try to find a compromise solution.

The most widely spread cameras are those, which have a resolution of 110000 and 300000 pixels. Images can have a resolution of 640x480 pixels (VGA). Due to low-quality lens the picture looks sometimes unreal, besides often one can find artifacts as a result of JPEG format. The reasons why this format was chosen to store files are the following: first of all, it is widely spread, secondly, it is not demanded for memory. Total memory pool is not large in the modern phones, about 1Mb on average and up to 4 Mb in the best models. It’s easy to count that an image (640х480 pixels) of high quality of the resolution will take about 45-50 Kb. So, maximum one can store 30-80 images. There are three types of JPEG files compression. The user could choose any of them. File of high quality (minimum compression) is the largest.

It is necessary to say that memory problem is not so urgent for smartphones, which usually have extra memory slots. It is easier to store pictures in memory cards than in the phone. The other advantage of smartphones is their size. It is rather large and allows to integrate lens of better quality. If you compare quality of images taken by usual phones and smartphones, smartphones will be definitely the champions. The highest resolution remains the same, only the lens quality and electronics is different.

Few words about electronics of digital cameras. It is not only responsible for shooting but for several other functions as well. For example, capabilities of graphical editors, different effects which could be applied to photos in the majority of handsets are defined by controllers of digital cameras. Effects mean overlapping of different frames, changing of perspective and other kinds of images processing.

Some handsets have zoom function, which allows to magnify images. But they have software digital zoom. Now it is too expensive to integrate optical zoom in the phone.

Poll shows that users are not ready to buy more expensive mobile phones of larger dimensions with better digital cameras. Most users understand that the price of such hybrid device will be exorbitant; it can be even higher than the price of good phone and camera. So, manufacturers save form-factor of the phone and try to reduce the price and the size of integrated cameras.

One of the solutions is external camera. Dimensions of the camera are not so important because it they are not connected with dimensions of the phone. Theoretically it is possible to place any camera with almost any matrix in the small case. Today there are 1.3 megapixel cameras but they are not widely spread. The main question is how it is possible to provide compatibility of high-resolution images and limited memory of the phone. Developers decided to store images in the camera itself. It is possible to view them on the screen if they are of 640х480 pixels resolution. In other case there is not enough memory in the phone. Developers tried to integrate different modules to change size of the picture to view it on the phone. It’s not the best solution. The advantages of such cameras is that they are charged from the phone. Screen of the handset is used as a viewfinder. But on the other hand, you should always wear the camera with you and untangle wires, besides the price is rather high.

Most of external cameras are precise copies of integrated cameras. It is the easiest way to create similar accessories (the example is camera from Nokia – HC-S1). The leader who created large line of external cameras is Sony Ericsson, its products were the most technologically advanced (many effects, own memory, compatibility with all phones from Sony Ericsson). On the whole it’s better to consider external cameras as accessories which are almost not demanded on the market. Users do not see any profit from this service.

Modern compact digital cameras are 5-6 times more expensive than external modules but can provide sufficient quality of images. The main shortcoming of such devices is that they can’t transfer data to the phone. We think that it’s just the question of time.

Probably mobile phones with functional cameras will appear among smartphones because their dimensions allow integrating such modules. Quality of images taken by usual phones will become better, but we doubt that it will greatly change in the near future. Mobile phones just popularized digital photos as they demonstrate users how easy they could receive and e-mail an image. All statements concerning the fact that digital cameras of mobile phones could crab the share of ordinary digital cameras have not sense. These two segments are not crossed. It is better to consider cameras as just one extra function, which is not so necessary. Plans of manufcaturers could prove it. For example, Samsung announced that in the end of this year almost 70% of all new models would be equipped with integrated cameras. Other manufacturers mentioned 40-50%.

There is no sense to choose a mobile phone basing on the quality of the integrated digital camera because the quality of photos would be not satisfactory in any case. There is no great much difference between the phones of different manufacturers. They are all based on the similar hardware solutions. Soon, following the fashion developers will actively integrate flashes in the phones. To some extent they will help to take picture in the darkness. But, taking into account that photosensitivity of matrix is not high, more artefacts will be appeared on the photos. A possibility to use cameras to transfer video (holding videoconferences) is more realistic. But only 3G and EDGE networks could provide sufficient quality of streaming video.

Summing up, we can repeat that camera in a mobile phone is just an additional feature. Classical digital cameras are more functional and provide better quality. In the future presence of one or two cameras in the phone will be an ordinary thing. They will have better quality, but not comparable to the quality of usual digital cameras.

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