When a digital camera maker starts making a smart phone, you star realizing how common the feature has become to mobile phones. Indeed, since the early days of the very first VGA cameras on mobile phones, newer, better quality cameras have been used in smart phone technology.
Sony Ericsson had their line of Cybershot capable smart phones (which combined the technology of their digital cameras with their mobile phones) and now, Taiwan based camera manufacturer Altek is adding their device into the upcoming list. The Altek Leo is not your ordinary smart phone.
While it will be running the familiar (and feature packed) Android 2.1 Éclair operating system, and users will get a nice big TFT capacitive touch screen to play with, this handset’s biggest feature is the 14 mega pixel camera. This camera uses a 1/2.3 inch CCD sensor, has 3x optical zoom and uses Xenon flash technology. It is the most impressive camera ever seen on a mobile phone yet –that or this is the first camera to run the Android operating system. Either way, the Altek Leo is certainly a phone that changes the way we see digital cameras.
Not to say that Kodak, Nikon or Minolta would also be producing smart phones anytime soon, but this latest development is a milestone for smart phone technology, and of course connectivity –that the concept of being able to communicate with one another is so ingrained in our society that even a digital camera would support the feature.
Altek has not disclosed any details on what other features are present in the device, but it is hoped that users will have a special app that allows them to easily upload and share images on the internet –a special Picasa or Flickr app would certainly be a welcome addition to this handset. While the camera features will doubtless be impressive, it remains to be seen how well the Altek Leo’s smart phone features will hold up against the other big phones on the market, such as the Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S and Google Nexus One.
Tags: Altek, Altek-Leo, google-android, smartphone