Super basic phone with decent camera?

blizeH

Hi,

I was planning on getting a digital camera for my dad's birthday, budget of up to £150 or so, but when we went out with my parents yesterday they both mentioned how they always forget to take their current (rather old digital) camera about with them - which made me think whether it'd be worth looking into a camera phone?

At the moment my dad has just a very basic old Nokia (basically has bluetooth and zero other features) but he's perfectly happy with it since it's simple and incredibly robust (the reason he sold his iPhone) so if I could find a phone like this, but with a fairly good camera it'd be awesome.

Any suggestions? Or should I just get him a regular camera and leave it up to him to carry it around everywhere? Thanks

grumbler

Camera with good phone (replacing K800i)

Sony Ericsson Elm with 5Mp camera is below £100

MissKeith

The Nokia X2-00 has a fantastic camera for the money. Plus it's easy to use and extremely loud too. That would be my recommendation.

blizeH

Thank you so much for the recommendations, both look great! Although it's quite hard to find specs or example photos of the X2-00? ;o

The replacement for the K800i sounds very good to me though, since I remember that having a decent camera, but I guess I'd really need to think about that compared with a camera costing £150 or so too... hmm!

Long shot, but I don't suppose there are any nice and easy to use touch screen phones (Android?!) with really good cameras too?

Thanks again

grumbler

blizeH wrote: »

Long shot, but I don't suppose there are any nice and easy to use touch screen phones (Android?!) with really good cameras too?

I think 'nice' is very personal. All androids have about the same interface. SE Xperia Mini has 5Mp camera and is one of the cheapest androids: Anyone got a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini??

As far as I remember some expensive androids have up to 12Mp.

DUTR

grumbler wrote: »

I think 'nice' is very personal. All androids have about the same interface. SE Xperia Mini has 5Mp camera and is one of the cheapest androids: Anyone got a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini??

As far as I remember some expensive androids have up to 12Mp.

Not so sure about that
Only the Satio and N8 I know to have 12mp cameras, it's not only about pixles though, whilst my Satio takes far superior indoor pics compared to my K850, the K850 pics were nowehere near as good as taken with a dedicated fuji 3.2mp camera, the f stop on the lens will play a part too

blizeH

Many thanks again guys, think the Mini might be a bit small for him but it's good to see there are still other options (shame the Satio is so expensive, but predictably so of course, agh!)

blizeH

Sorry to bring up this old topic, but it's so hard to find info on the cameras for these phones!

I've heard so many good things about the Orange San Francisco - how does the camera compare to the phones mentioned above please?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

A cameraphone is rarely any good as even a cheap, 50 quid digital camera. The lenses on cameraphones are tiny and so are the sensors.

Do yourself a favour, buy a slim digi-cam and remember to take it with you

blizeH

Thanks, that was my initial thought but yeah, I was put off by the fact my dad said he rarely remembers to take his camera with him.

As an iPhone 4 owner I really see the benefit of having a camera with me at all times too, and think my dad could benefit from that.

I'm just thinking if I could spend £150 or so and get a phone with a semi-decent camera he'd probably be really happy with that.

grumbler

I think K800i is still available for less than £150. The camera is very good and you don't need more than 3.2M if you don't print photos bigger than 7.5"x5.0".