It's not just a technology issue either, how about convienience? I have a very good camcorder and a decent 1gb mp3 player. Both of which i am 100% happy with but to use these things you have to plan ahead, you have to think about picking thm up and taking them out with you. They never seem to be there when you need them unless you plan to use them. The London bombings for example were covered by people with video hones and camera phones. If it had happened a few years earlier there would have been no footage at all but that is nothing at all to do with technology, simply that people do not carry video cameras on a daily basis.

I WILL NEVER CHANGE MY CAMERA OR MY !POD FOR A NOKIA PHONE EVEN IF IT HAS CAMERA OR MP3 BUILD IN.
THERE IS NO WAY A PHONE WILL HAVE 7 OR 8 MEGAPIXELS AND THE TECH FOR HAVING GREAT PICTURES. AND THERE IS NO WAY A TELEPHONE WILL HAVE THE CAPACITY OF THE !POD. EVEN WHEN THE TECH OF THE PHONES FROM NOKIA ( THIS ARE THE MOST UGLY´S TELEPHONES) ADVANCE WITH TIME. THE SAME IS GOING TO HAPPEN WITH THE CAMERAS AND THE MP3 PLAYERS. SOO. KEEP DREAMING NOKIA EXECUTIVES.

Well im always amused to this old tradition wich started last century, in which marketting has not only sold us but burned into our brains that there is no limit for any kind of technology, i just read 1 comment saying that laws of physics have a limmit on how far phone cameras can go and i say BRAVO!! someone made a smart point! no matter what, there is a limit not made by the capacity of those good old godlike scientist but of the laws of physics, no matter what, if the cammeraphones start rushing into the market theyll make (and have made) one thing happen, digital cammeras prices to go down, wich will eventually mean to be able to buy a professional digital cammera for 500 bucks or less, in the end, ill end up having my cellphone for calls and a professional digital cammera which as a matter or fact will never be even close to be compared to a phonecammera, yes you read well NEVER, not a matter of shortmind, just a knowledge of physics wich says that if phones always tend to be smaller, ill never get the quality im looking for

I don't care if mp3 players die out. Mp3 sounds like crap anyway. Cell phone pics are kinda the same crap equivalent of mp3 also. It's sad to see the wholesale movement away from quality. Unfortunately there may come a day when you can't get quality music sound or a decent camera unless you are rich. Hopefully sanity will prevail in the end.

The end for MP3 players? Nah, possible, but not likely.... End of Camcorders or Digi Cams? Hell no..

Cell phones are great, but the problem with ALL IN ONE's that they rarely do everything (or sometimes any one thing) well. Example: HP All in one printers. horrible qualit. I think that cell phones WILL put pressure on the portable audio player market, but don't think it will ever replace them, especially for players meant for the gym. Who the heck wants to go jogging with their phone on their arm or belt. Not eye, I don't wanna be bothered when I'm working out with some call that can wait.

As for quality for digi cams / video cams? The cell phone market will only be (at best even) @ 25% of the quality of the best digi cam out there. There for it will never replace the camera. might make selling slim cameras a lil more interesting, but wouldn't take them out of the loop. I couldn't ever imagine taking a family photo or a pic at disney with only a cell phone. Same with video, it just doesn't have the features or quality that hand held vidoe cams have. Not now, and anytime soon... (not even within the next 5-10 years)

The problem with mobile 'phones is that they come with mobile telephony contracts which cost extra for things I will never use. I don't recall that my excellent Fuji camera or my Creative Touch came encumbered with a 'keep on paying us to use these devices' contracts. I've got a camera/mp3 'phone because that's all I could get. So I got a 'pay as you go' contract to try to save a bit of the hard earned. Never use it for mp3 'cos the creative blows it away, never use it to take photos because there is no control over the process whatsoever and it has a fixed length lens and the output is pants compared to a 'real' camera, and as for video - you have got be joking. The day may come when everything is in one case, but my guess is that like everything that has ever been made that is a do-it-all device there will still be performance compromises that some people (that's me) won't be prepared to accept.

1. phones get used/broken quite easily so once every 1 or 2 years i have to get a new one;
2. the mp3-player on my nokia 6230 is probably ok for most people but the sound on my creative zen is way better;
3. a friend of my mum has a sony-ericsson phone with 2megapixel camera but that one can't keep up with my panasonic lumix. As long as mobile phones don't have a decent analog lens there's no way they'll ever have the same quality as a decent digital or analog camera.

But i think also nokia has a point... most of the people are not in for three seperate devices even if the quality is better and will get a cellphone who has these features.
Look what happened to the audio industry some years ago. People who are really fond of hifi will get a system with seperated devicees. But who buys them? Mostly only people who wanna spend money to that. The others buy an integrated system with lower quality but also cheaper.

COmplete rubbish. I've yet to see a phone that can deliver picture quality anywhere near that of a digital camera, even a £40 2 megapixel one that's two years old!
Why do you think SLR cameras are still made in digital form? You can't get a decent picture quality without a big lens, which as you might realise, won't fit in a phone.
You also have to remember, high-end nokia phones are about as reliable as a car made of chocolate. I wouldn't rely on any nokia phone with a load of features given the grief I've seen with them.

this article is crap,and i would not believe it

read this as thay have a new drive out and now being use in mp-3 players.and i am sure it will be used in camcorder and digital cameras,very soon...

Toshiba has already shipped 40GB and 80GB, 1.8-inch PMR drives. At press time, only Toshiba's Megabeat MP3 players, sold in Japan, feature them,

A Faster, Denser Hard Drive Debuts
http://dvdxcopy.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/320915

Erm, shouldn't it be gigabeat? I own one!

---

Hey, this is no BS guys. I heard that National Geographic, Time, Sports Illustrated, and many top broadcasting company's are going to "do away" with their epuipment. They are going to arm their photographers, and videographers with Nokia's new all in one cell phone/camera/videocamera/mp3 player. This is about as far fetched as the executive from Nokia's statement. I agree with the person earlier that said this is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Unless they start building their phones the size of a shoe box, and you carry around a backpack full of lenses and accesories. I did get a good laugh out of the aritcle though.

---

Pretty daft comments from the senior executive. They might well have an impact on the casual buyers, people who only want a camera for taking photos when they're on holiday but that's about it. But even then you're talking probably 2-3 years not 6-12 months. There's no chance that anybody serious about photography will start using a cellphone instead of dedicated camera.

As regards MP3 players, again they might take a small part of the market, for example the smaller 512Mb/1Gig market but that's about all. I've got a spv550 phone and a Creative Zen and to be honest my Zen hardly ever gets used now unless i'm going on a long trip. I can just plug my phone into my PC in the morning, give it five minutes and it's put a load of new songs on it for me to listen to. Which is great for the daily commute to work but still no use if you're going on a long trip.

And that's all without pointing out that Nokia phones are bloody useless anyway. If Nokia and other cellphone manufacturers want to make easy money all they have to do is actually start releasing their new phones in North America instead of Europe only. When I first moved over to Canada and walked into a cellphone shop it was like taking a trip back in time given the quality of the phones available.

While phones will never match the capabilities of dedicated equipment they can come close enough to satisfy a great many folks.

I've had my Samsung T809 for a couple months now and it's become a good enough MP3 player for me especially after I fitted it with a 512MB TransFlash card. I like the ability to have all those tunes on tap wherever I go without having to carry a dedicated MP3 player.

The camera it came with isn't too bad either. It's a 1.3 megapixel that can take pics at up to 1280x1024 (they look good - I've tried it) with various metering and ISO settings. It's nice to be able to snap decent quality photos wherever I'm at. It'll record video as well.

Like I said before, they won't replace high performance dedicated equipment but it can't be denied that they're getting much better.

Nephilim,

How the hell are you? Good to see you back here at our nursery school play yard. I thought you may have gotten tired of sending us brats to our rooms for "timeouts".

---

If this guy pulls himself any harder the top of his head is going to cave in

freshguy,

I'm back from the dead.

Lol welcome back, you havent missed much.

Come on guys, catch up. Not so many years ago you wouldnt have believed you could have a mobile phone at all, it was science fiction just like the computer you're so fond of. It's gonna happen, and the quality will be every bit as good as the best digital camera/camcorder/mp3 player on the market yet, and who knows what else they'll incorporate into it. Personally I cant wait.......science fiction?

Fiction. Not science fiction.

Quote:

---

It's gonna happen, and the quality will be every bit as good as the best digital camera/camcorder/mp3 player on the market yet

---

They may, in the future, come to equal the best we have today but the technologies for MP3 players and cameras especially will continue to get better as well. Multiuse products simply can't equal dedicated equipment. No phone in the world will ever compare to the best quality digital SLR.

The opposite would be true as well - they could probably stick phones in iPods and cameras but they wouldn't compare to a dedicated phone.

Quote:

---

"can a phone hold 2 hours of Digital Video NO!" Yes they can depending on the video quality and the memory size (which are both getting better every year)

---

You are a Fucking Moron!!! Digital Video is a standard! There is no depending on video quality or whatever you were talking about. Digital Video is a standard 8 MB/sec 29.97 frames/sec 720x480 NTSC. No phone in the word will be able to produce that withough dropping fames for many years.

Quote:

---

"Plus no phone can take more than 2 Mega-Pixels again, Samsung." The amount of megapixels doesn't tell you everything. You can have better quality pictures with a 2 megapixel camera than a 3 megapixel camera (compare your Samsung cameras to Nokia N90 which has a Carl Zeiss lens). Besides, Nokia does have a 3 megapixel model (N80).

---

OK, my bad, but 3 Megapixels is still NOTHING compared to Cannon or Nikon cameras. first off all camera phones have a time delay of like a quarter of a second to a half a second. Whereas digital camers have significantly reduced that time. Camera phones have really crappy zoom too.

Quote:

---

"And I don't know about you, but I have no way of getting my pics off my phone without paying for some special flat pin USB that is only made for my phone." Lol the data cable is something like 19 euros and it even comes in the package with many of the models. And it even works on most Nokia models. But why on earth wouldn't you want to buy a 15 euro bluetooth antenna for your computer which works with every bluetooth cabable device out there?

---

Not everyone has a bluetooth phone, nor do they want to pay $20 to get like 10-20 pictures off there phone.

Quote:

---

"They really did a bad job on all phones with there crappy USP plug-is over the past few years" Samsung and every other manufacturers did even worse. They have many different cable types for their models. Even the chargers are different between their models!

---

Yeah, different model chargers and adapters for each phone was a terrible idea.

Quote:

---

"its only now they are realizing that a standard 4 pin is the way to go". They are one of the first.

---

It only took them how many years to figgure that out!?!?

Quote:

---

"If you ask me Nokia is WAY behind on the times." I disagree ;).

---

Then well have to agree to disagree.

---

Moron is as moron says. A phone can EASILY hold two hours of quality digital video. Capturing is another matter, because you need a decent lens to take it, but the latest phone from Samsung has an 8GB Hard disk and Sony ericsson are offering a 4GB flash memory phone.
I might also add that 2 hours of digital video in, say the DivX format will be around 1GB, plenty of room.

---

wheelman7

You just won a one week ban for that outburst. If I ever see you swear and/or attack someone like that again the ban will be permanent.

---

<applause>
As I say, moron is as moron says.

---

the Cell phones are # on the list of Gadjets... and based on annual amount spent, are the "top list" just because everyone pays for phone service!!

big manuf's know this, and this whole "Cell Phone" would converge, becuase it would become like bread and butter...

for the MP3 player & Camera makers, they are the ones who add Cell Phone functionality and vise-versa to have all 3-functions ... Nokia already has a HD based 4gb storage, thats is just what the new Ipod Nano Max-out is.... .. and Cell phones already have much longer battry life(compared to Digt Camera's), and do not forget the best of low low-powered hi-perf CPU's.. that could combine all 3-funcipnality faster than mp3 makers etc ... Nokia, has out-sold Ipod , and Dig.-Cameras already ... just have to wait and see when the Ipod w/ Cel-phone & Camera is out ...?

Phones rarely have better battery life than cameras when in camera mode. So what if your phone lasts 150 hours on standby, and your camera lasts for 10 hours in photo mode, your phone will probably last for 4. Phones do more and more these days, but they'll never replace single-function devices.