Camera Phones; Are They All What They’re Hyped Up to be?

Mobiles first came out with VGA cameras and gradually evolved into multi pixel camera phones. But where do you draw the line at, 2mp, 3mp, 12mp maybe? Now days you could go out and spend a huge amount of money on a 12mp camera phone. The phones come with large flashy screens, and most tend to be touch screen. Ultimately these new mobiles better resemble some new fangled gadgetry than a mobile phone. Or at least what the phone used to be before the battery thirsty inbuilt touch screens, GPS featured, 12mp mobile variants of today. while its quite handy to have a camera and a better screen in a mobile phone, one needs to know just what they are paying for when purchasing these top of the line phones, some worth over $1000 a piece.

I’m sure we all remember the days we used to use film cameras to take our photos. You can still buy them now days though they are becoming a rarity to buy new in SLR form. Film cameras are far cheaper now days than even the cheap digital cameras. If you wanted you could pick up a point and shoot film variant, with film at the local servo for as little as $10. One can pick up descent pocket digital cameras for only a couple oh hundred dollars. And digital SLR’s begin in the high hundreds. You could buy entry level digital SLR’s for as little as AUS$700. For the same price bracket one could buy a top of the line point and shoot digital camera, with huge zoom, flash and even memory cards thrown in the deal. To be blunt no matter if you buy film or digital, if its a camera it would hugely outperform the best camera phone in every aspect of photography. This is a guarantee. Thus spending $1000 on a mobile, which would be superseded within a few months, and lose exponential value accordingly, is sheer stupidity at the best. Most phone users wont be making large prints of their pics. When uploading for the comp it doesn’t matter id the camera is 2mp or 15mp, if the photograph is going to be used for a small format. Since you wont be needing a phone that has the 12mp camera functionality, why pay such a huge premium for a hugely inferior device? But say for arguments sake your intending in making larger prints, and that your looking at investing your hard earned cash on a camera, why not just by a digital camera? Why pour your money in an easily superseded electronic device, the camera phone. Why pay top dollar for a top of the line camera phone when for the same money you could buy a descent digital SLR, that would allow you many years of high quality photography?