Things You Need To Know Before Buying A Camera Phone

mitchbuchannon | Nov 07, 2009 | View Comments

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lg-viewty Nowadays digital photography has come within the reach of the masses. The price of the digital cameras has hit rock bottom. However, the present generation mobile phones are also being considered by many people as a viable alternative to entry level digital cameras. The latest high end camera phones have advanced photo editing and capture features that rival those of a dedicated digital camera. In fact, the market is flooded with so many camera mobiles that choosing the right one can be troublesome for a person. Therefore, a person willing to buy a camera mobile needs to consider certain aspects and do his homework properly before going to the stores.

There are lots of cell phones with cameras ranging from average to professional quality. The pricing varies accordingly. Hence, a person should set a budget before hunting for camera mobiles. He also needs to be clear about his need. If he already has a camera then it would be practical to buy a phone with an entry level camera. This can be used for taking casual outdoor shots. On the contrary, someone with deep pockets may opt for a 5 Megapixel camera phone that will deliver near digicam picture quality.

The Megapixel count can also be a bit tricky. While a camera with higher megapixel sensor delivers better picture, image quality is also affected by many other factors than its resolution. There is a discernible difference between the picture quality of a camera with 2MP resolution and another with 5MP resolution. But in most of the cases the images captured by a 5MP and an 8MP sensor look almost identical.

It is always better to opt for a camera mobile that offers optical zoom instead of digital zoom. This is because higher amount of digital zoom results in inferior image quality and excessive pixilation. However, most of the camera mobiles still use digital zoom to maintain the compact size. The Lens type can also have a direct impact on the image quality captured by a camera handset. Some of the high end mobiles come equipped with powerful lens made by companies like Carl-Zeiss and they capture sharper and brighter images than handsets with a standard lens.

Some handset manufacturers bundle their sets with external storage cards for storing data and media. These cards are also used for storing images shot by the phone. Therefore, it would be more sensible to buy a handset that comes bundled with a storage card. With prolonged usage, the phone’s internal memory will become full and then the user would be forced to use the external memory for storing the images.

People do not buy camera mobiles to store the captured images inside forever. They often have to transfer the captured images and videos to computers and share them over the web. Therefore, a camera handset with better connectivity options is always preferable from a buyer’s perspective. In addition to USB, Bluetooth is a desirable feature in a mobile as it offers wireless data transfer between devices. Apart from these, features like inbuilt photo and video editing is found in some handsets. These are handy if you want to take some snaps at any event and share them on the way using the Internet.

The battery life of a handset should be considered in this context. Using Flash, Bluetooth and web access can drain the battery faster. Hence, a phone with longer battery life should be the choice of a person interested in mobile photography.

For more cameraphone buying tips click here.