Optical zoom arrives on 12Mp cameraphone
Samsung claims world's first
Samsung has followed up its recent launch of the 12Mp Pixon cameraphone by unveiling the world’s first 12Mp cameraphone that has an optical zoom.

Samsung's W880: supports optical zooming for - hopefully - better stills
Digital zooms, as most gadget fans know, don’t result in particularly good quality long-distance shots. So Samsung’s new SCH-W880 cameraphone features a 3x optical zoom that the firm has promised will enable users to “take perfect pictures”.
The phone still features a 2x digital zoom, in addition to touch-screen auto-focus tracking and a 720p, 30f/s video capture mode.

'Huh? My camera's ringing...'
Speaking of touchscreens, the W880 has an 800 x 480, 3.3in display and – according to Samsung – genuine compact camera styling.
Imaging aside, the W880 will play all the standard media formats, offers Bluetooth connectivity and 4GB of on-board storage, and presents several “value added features”, including a TV tuner.
Samsung said that the SCH-W880 will be available across Korea from next month. A UK launch date or price hasn’t been released. ®
COMMENTS
I would But...
It wont remember the camera settings and they wil NEVER release a firmware fix.
Disgruntled i8510 owner.
Finally...
... it looks like they might just have a form factor large enough to encourage them to increase the size of the CMOS censor to make the 12mp camera take decent pictures and not just generate back ground noise on the image.
That's assuming they can be bothered to make a proper job of the internals...
Zoom
I had a Sharp 3G phone back in 2004 that had a optical zoom so there is nothing new here
But does look very cool
Bullshit.
Here in China there is a secondhand mobile phone shop (shady place) where I have seen camera's with optical zoom and phone capabilities. They are Korean import (or Japanese) and probably break when just looking at them. But they exist and work. Oh, same goes for that watch phone. Seen them around for two years. Comes with Bluetooth too!
covert shots
well thats the voyeuring gone out the window
