| If you are in the wonderful, but confusing, situation of looking forward to buying a new camera phone, then fear not - you can make a good, informed choice based on a quick checklist that we have for you here. Make a list of all appealing camera phones that have the features below, and then pick the one that best meets your budget and brand loyalties. |
| |
| MegaPixels |
|
| Although the megapixel game is slightly over hyped - it is the first thing that an advertisement would emphasize on for a good reason. The MP value is a major factor in determining the photo quality. The higher, the better - well, at least up to a point. 1.3MP cameras are generally going to give you slightly grainy images, you would want to look at at least 2 or 3 MP for beginning to take decent pictures. Anything below 1.3 tends to get intolerable. |
|
| A whole slew of 8+ MP camera phones have flooded the market in recent times - the best way to decide if you really need something that grand is to walk into a store (or Google) and get to see some sample pictures and then take your pick. If you are willing to splurge on more MPs, then the 5 range should be good for more than average photographs. |
| |
| Zoom |
|
| Most camera phones have only digital zoom, rather than optical. Optical zoom actually uses the lens of the camera to zoom in on (and therefore "really get closer to") your subject, and a digital zoom simulates optical zoom by simply enlarging a portion of the image. A digital zoom of around 3x is not a big deal because you can zoom and crop using any half-decent image editing software when you are post-processing (well, not effective if you have 1.3MP on your lens - but a higher MP lens comes in handy here). |
|
| Watch out for optical zoom, and get it if you can. Digital zoom causes loss of quality that a keen eye can make out without much effort. While you can make up for lack of zoom with more megapixels, you have to remember that when you "zoom and crop" on your image editor, the resultant image does not have the same resolution of the original one, so there is certainly some loss (especially noticeable if you are looking to print, or use an image as your wallpaper!). |
| |
| Flash |
|
| You would want a flash on your camera phone if you plan to shoot indoors or in low-light conditions. Make sure the flash is located at an appropriate place and that your fingers will not cover it in any natural way of holding the phone/camera. |
|
| There are two kinds of flash: LED and Xenon. The latter is a much brighter variant found on regular digital cameras, and it's what would be preferable. But if you are comparing two phones and just this difference digs a considerably deeper hole in your pocket, then you would want to consider the LED. If you can get hold of the phone for a test drive, then you should examine what suits you better - a sustainably and reasonably bright LED is certainly much better than nothing, and has more than tolerable results. |
| |
| Build Quality |
|
| Some phones are designed to look more like cameras than phones. If the camera is mostly what you are planning to buy a camera phone for, then it's worth looking out for devices which are designed to mimic the look of the standalone point and shoot camera. It makes your photography a lot more convenient, although it may get in the way of the device being a phone, so make sure you examine it yourself before you buy it. |
|
| Also, make sure that the slot for the memory card does not require you to remove the battery to slip the card in - it will get very annoying eventually. |
| |
| Connectivity |
|
| There are many ways to get your photos off the camera/phone. The more, the merrier. The standard options are direct connection to a computer (via a USB cable) - it's better for you if the USB port at the camera/phone end is a standard one rather than a proprietary one so it's easier to get extra cables (or perhaps you already have them), a bluetooth connection, and sending as a multimedia message. |
|
| Some camera phones let you upload pictures directly to facebook, twitter, flickr, picasa, and so on. Although the absence of this feature is not a deal-breaker, it does come in very handy. Often you can just upload your picture to flickr and then get rid of it, bypassing the step of transferring it to your computer and saving you time. |
| |
| Software |
|
| Although you can always edit your images using software on your computer (notably Photoshop for advanced editing, GIMP is the free counterpart, and there's Picasa for the basic stuff), it is quite handy to have an image editor right on your phone. Many phones come with pretty good editors, that let you adjust contrast, brightness, and give you the option to write on the picture, and also crop if you wish. |
|
| Also, be prepared to organize your photos with a good photo management tool - many camera phones have good "gallery" software that let you view your photos in many fancy ways. On your desktop, Picasa is an excellent choice of a free image organizer, coming from Google. |
|
| Remember to scour up camera reviews that often have sample images and benchmark tests before you buy a camera. Often you'll zero in on a couple of models - and then it gets hard, but you'll find detailed comparisons on the internet to help you out here - so good luck and have fun! |
| |
|
|
| |
