Mobile Phones Enter 2-Mpixel Era

With the launch of Casio’s A5403CA for KDDI, Sharp’s SH505iS for DoCoMo, and our old friend the V601SH from Sharp to Vodafone, Japan has truly entered the 2-megapixel era. Beyond this, KDDI is planning A5502K with a xenon lamp flash unit this month. With two megapixels and onboard electronic flash, photography with mobile phones will make major inroads into digital camera territory.

One of the important points to realize is that these camera-keitai are now much more than toys, but include features that are beginning to really turn them into potential substitutes for digital still cameras and the race to clarity presupposes fast gains for CMOS, suggests Nikkei Electronics Asia.

Editors’ comments: CMOS on the comeback is one issue, but the lack of modules for mass shipments could be another big issue that’s not addressed by this article. Given the component shortages exposed by last year’s pre-Christmas rush, we wonder where the modules are coming from!