12-Megapixel Camera Phone War BeginningWhen Sony Ericsson first unveiled its 12-megapixel camera phone at the Mobile World Congress in February, Samsung Electronics switched on the ignition of the competition surrounding the 12-megapixel camera phone. Samsung announced that it will release the world's first 12-megapixel camera phone with full-touch screen, named "Pixon12" (model M8910) this month in European countries.
The company said that the camera phone's "dedicated camera power key" gives users fast, one-touch access to the camera function, which allows them to simply aim and snap, capturing images as fast as an advanced digital camera,. With improved image saving time, users can move to the next shot within about 2 seconds. To enable users to take snapshots that yield perfect images, the camera phone, equipped with a 28mm wide-angle lens, includes new functions, such as "Touch Auto-Focus" and "Smart Auto."
The Pixon12 has a 3.1-inch AMOLED display with a contrast ratio of 10,000:1, and it offers power-saving features that increase battery life. The phone enables users to easily organize and manage photos as well as upload images and videos to popular social networking sites, such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, and MySpace.
Sony Ericsson has announced its 12.1-megapixel camera equipped smartphone named "Satio" (known previously as "Idou"), which will be made available commercially in the fourth quarter. The Satio features an "intuitive" touch focus and a 3.5-inch touch screen in the 16:9 widescreen format, which is capable of displaying 640x360 pixels. Other features of the Symbian OS-based smartphone include Wi-Fi, GPS, Google Maps, Bluetooth.
The company said that connecting to "PlayNow" enables users to download music, movies, and games to both a PC and the mobile phone, which includes specially developed ring tones and music tones as well as DRM-free music tracks and TrackID charts from around the world.
Meanwhile, LG Electronics also reportedly plans to launch a 12-megapixel camera phone in the fourth quarter of this year.