Why can’t camera phones become better cameras?

I really like the convenience of having a camera phone for taking snapshots, but unfortunately, there is a vast gulf in capability between what a modest digital camera can do and what is standard on camera phones. My Motorola MPx220 (despite it’s quoted 1.3megapixel capability) is just pathetic. Witness the following two pictures, the first taken with my MPx220:

Photo from my MPx220

The second with my Nikon 4500, a 3.2 megapixel digital camera:

Photo From My Nikon 4500

Click through to look at the originals. There is no comparison. Yes, the Nikon has a good quality, high resolution sensor and a reasonable lens, but can’t anyone make a decent camera phone that takes decent, honest 640×480 images. I’m not asking for megapixels here…

One thought on “Why can’t camera phones become better cameras?”

  1. jim benton

    I found your rant on blogdigger.com and as hoping that you might be interested in posting your rant on our rant and rave site. We launched HolyShnikes.com (Rant and Rave Site) on June 7 and in our first month we had over 700 new posts to the site through word of mouth. On July 1 we launched a new ranking system allowing users to compete to be the most influential and we’re getting tremendous word of mouth growth. (recently featured on KRON4 in the bay area)

    About:
    HolyShnikes.com, a hobby site built by the same guys that built Evite.com back in 1999, is a place where users in San Francisco can post all types of rants and raves regarding just about anything in the Bay Area, from rants about cab drivers on cell phones to raves about the a new shortcut they found to the freeway. The community controls whether they think the content is appropriate or not and users can respond to other posts. It’s designed to be a fun, humorous, and lightly informative way to learn about all sorts of topics in your city. The site is called HolyShnikes (Catch phrase from the movie Tommy Boy) and located at: http://www.holyshnikes.com We’re launching a ranking system for the site later next week where users will compete to see who is the most influential.

    We would be very appreciative if you would be willing to link or introduce our site to your user base. Please let me know if you would be open to meeting in person to discuss further.

    Best,
    Jim

    Co-Founder HolyShnikes
    http://www.holyshnikes.com

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