Author: Kurt

Excuse me if this comes across as gloating, but I continue to marvel at my new mobile phone. I just discovered tonight that in addition to the decent-enough 120 x 160 pixel images it takes that I have been uploading to my new “moblog” sidebar on the right (see “Wandering Muses” — I’m not completely happy with the title but I can’t remember my original better title!), the phone also takes 640 x 480 pixel images. The above image is an example of one I just took now, of my actual desktop (some of you I’m sure will recognize which application is up on the computer screen). I did crop it a bit, as it was a little dark on the edges (the camera doesn’t have a flash, although it does emit a beam of “light” if I turn that setting on), and I’ve shrunk it down for inclusion here.

I will try to take a few more of these larger photos tomorrow outside to better assess the quality, but I may have to re-think my original sidebar idea because of it. At any rate, for now I’m holding off on going crazy with it (or some of my phone’s other features, like GPS), until I get my next phone bill so I can assess just how much all this is going to cost me. Naoko has made it clear that she’s only paying for basic service and that the rest will have to come out of my monthly allowance.

This photo comes at you via 300,000 pixels, or 0.3 megapixels, a far cry from my 3.3 megapixel Olympus digital camera, to say nothing of the newer 4.0 and 5.0 megapixel digital cameras on the market. And next month, DoCoMo will start selling their 1.3 megapixel camera phones. However, as this Yomiuri article points out, it’s only a matter of time before 2 and 3 megapixel phones are released. I have to tell you, only 2 days removed from receiving my new phone, I’m already looking forward to 10 months from now when I can change my phone yet again, most probably for a 1.3 or thereabouts megapixel camera phone. And as long as handset prices remain relatively low, it seems silly not to. (According to that article I previously mentioned, more than 50% of mobile phones sales in Japan in 2002 were due to customers replacing older model phones.)

Another thing I relized tonight, despite the fact I call it a mobile phone, I have yet to actually use the phone part of it; I have no idea how it sounds, or the reception, or anything connected to that aspect of this gadget. That’s probably more telling than anything as to how I view this new toy.