Camera Phones Plaza

For cell phone users in parts of Asia, camera phones with resolutions of up to 10 megapixels are yesterday's news. But for folks on this side of the globe, a 3.2-megapixel camera phone that just hit the streets is a big deal. The 3.2-megapixel Samsung SCH-a990 is now available through Verizon Wireless, but it ain't cheap. At $400 (with a two-year contract), it costs considerably more than the Motorola Q smartphone, which goes for $300 with a two-year contract from Verizon.

Samsung's SCH-a990 has a clamshell case.Though the steep price seems hard to justify, there's a lot to like about this thoughtfully designed (for the most part) clamshell-style phone that you flip open to use. Its cover rotates 180 degrees, automatically triggering the camera mode. Once the camera is activated, you can use the 2.2-inch internal LCD to frame shots and take videos.

The SCH-a990's camera.If you hold the phone in landscape format, it works much like a normal camera, with the shutter button at the top right, exactly where my index finger lands. Opposite the shutter (on the other side panel) is the MicroSD expansion slot. In view of the SCH-a990's high price, I would have hoped to get some kind of memory card--even a low-capacity 32MB card, say--bundled with the phone. Alas, you have to buy it separately. The phone does include 72MB of user-accessible memory for storing content.

Read full review here.