Surprise: Japanese carriers are announcing literally dozens of phones at once. Okay, look, that's not a surprise at all, but bear with us, because there are a few shining jewels in here amongst the seemingly endless array of WVGA displays and one-seg tuners from
NTT DoCoMo and
KDDI au, both of whom have announced their Summer 2010 collections of handsets this week. Of note, two of the models from DoCoMo -- the Fujitsu F-06B and Sharp SH-07B are capable of shooting 1080p video, while KDDI's SH008 from Sharp, S003 from Sony Ericsson, and CA005 from Casio all feature sensors of 12 megapixels or larger. Several of the devices can also be used as WiFi hotspots, and Hitachi's trick Beskey for KDDI has interchangeable keypads that change the shape of the keys, not the layout -- a bit superficial, perhaps, but we're all about choice. DoCoMo is also launching a handful of smartphones: the Lynx SH-10B from Sharp (not to be confused with the old Atari handheld of the same name) that features Android atop a 5-inch touchscreen, Toshiba's 4.1-inch T-01B Dynapocket with WinMo, and RIM's plain old BlackBerry
Bold 9700. Don't get us wrong, it's still quite a haul, but we can't help but feel that the gap between Japan's wireless scene and the rest of the world is closing fast.
posted May 19th 2010 12:27AM
Go Japan. Put Android on those puppies!
Surely 12 megapixels on a tiny sensor will just result in terrible images in all but extremely well lit situations and even in well lit situations, 12 megapixels on a tiny sensor will give crappy dynamic range resulting in blown highlights and black hole shadow detail more often than not. 12 megapixels is good for an A3 print or larger, and who is going to print that big from a phone pic? Plus it's more data to send if you want to email a pic to a friend and will probably exceed the maximum data if you want to photo-message a friend. Why can't we stick to 5 megapixels until sensor technology improves?
@andyroo77
who mentioned anything about sensor size? You sound like you're parroting what everyone else says, but what if they did like Nokia on the N8 and used a Point-And-Shoot class sensor? Don't assume. Japanese devices had good cameras and high res displays long ago.
Some of us like good pics, and don't just take them to email to friends or print. Some people make money and art with their cameras.
@christexaport You make money from pictures you take with your phone? I'm impressed! I use a DSLR. I wasn't aware the N8 had a point and shoot size sensor - a step up, but even so, it is my opinion that 12 megapixels is too many, even on a point and shoot sized sensor, especially considering the sensor would unlikely be made by any of the big players of the digital photography world and would therefore be even worse. I think you would be in a vast minority using a phone to take commercially viable (sellable) photos? Art can be created with 5MP or even a webcam but I doubt it's gonna be the go-to camera of a serious professional.
@7777777777777
What are you on?
Japanese phones are awesome =) too bad they don't function to full potential outside of Japan