Casio's 8.1 megapixel W63CA with 480 x 800 pixel OLED flips out in Japan
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Oct 27th 2008 4:59AM
posted Oct 27th 2008 4:59AM
[Via Impress]
Please note: If you're a current Engadget commenter, you do not need to re-register. Simply login and you will be prompted to select a username.
thx for increasing my jealousy of the japanese >_<
The question I think everyone wants to know is how much will it cost.
Let's hope the time between shots is at the lower end of the spectrum. As much as I love my N95 it can be painful waiting for the next shot. That aside, I think this could possibly be my next phone unless Nokia can beat it; I'm going to skip the touch phones for a generation.
Cool phone... just don't drop it : P
its not a phone, its a Camera with a phone feature
holy fuck me. me want
is holy hot?
Holly?
I agree with the above sentiment.
Fuk Mi?
Fuk Yu!
I hope Casio get their act together and get that out in the UK ASAP, my wife loves flip phones and she's got a Exlim camera anyway!
And its in Pink, what more could she want!?
(Ok, a lot more, but she's a woman).
VERY NICE, will something this sexy ever come out in europe?
Nice. How much does it cost?
I'm betting in the $600-800 USD range. When I was phone shopping in August, the highest megapixel shooter with AU (the new phone's carrier) was a 5.1 megapixel Sony Ericson Cybershot number to the tune of $590 USD... and that was just a regular TFT display.
If it's 3G, wouldn't it be possible to buy from Japan and use in Europe, The Americas, etc?
Not all regions use the same frequency for 3G?
I think that's right.
assuming you colud understand japanese menus
Again? That's just really dumb. Companies really should use their purportedly awesome mobile service and call up telcos in other countries an have a 10 minute chat once in a while.
This is a au WIN phone, it uses cdma
Sounds very nice. I wish my Touch Pro had a better camera.
This looks great, but I can't help but wonder about the total domination of the flip phone in Japan. I was there recently and almost every phone is exactly the same form factor. You hardly ever see a candy bar phone.
If I showed the picture presented after the break to my friends, they'll ask me what the model number of that camera is (because it seriously does NOT look like a phone). Seriously, this whole "camera phone" thing has gone a bit too far. I reckon that's why so many RAZRs have been sold.
duh, seriously, the razr is a cameraphone. i'm seriously not following
Dual LED's on an Exilim branded phone??
This phone is plain awesome.
Seriously, it has WIN written right on it.
heh, someone else saw that
where is the hot model to go with this hot phone. Wonder if can be used stateside...
what an awesome looking camera!
Now that's the first flip phone I've drooled over since the Star Tac...
Japan just plain rocks! You get nifty tech like this and I am really going to miss the 100mbps fiber optic internet I get for $60 a month ..... ={
Holy smokes! Me want!
what you heralded up there with the 3inch 800x480 screen is old news in the world of technology, my toshiba g900 has one the sony xperia x1 has 1 and i'm sure there are several others in the world of windows mobile that do as well
The key word here is OLED.
japan always gets the cool stuff first
lol
WOW i CANT BELiEAVE HOW GOOD THiS LOOKS, AND iTS NOT MADE BY APPLE WOW
that screen is pretty common in Japan right now, as to the image, i think they mean Shine Pink, lol, or Shane Pink whoever he is!
sooner or later they're gonna start recording in 720p, and then then next big technology will be recording in 1080p
Which provider will this be attached to?
au by KDDI, it is a CDMA 1xEV DO Rev A device but for several reasons (au does not use ESN/MEID, the phone has 800Mhz but the uplink and downlink channels are different then those used by North American carriers, even if it technically was possible to make it work, the carriers here wouldn't let you)
Hello Casio! Bring it to Europe! Please! I always wondered why no producer has ever managed to merge camera and phone perfectly. Full phone AND camera functionality - that's what I want
All Japanese phones come from the manufacturer locked to a specific carrier, so even if the technology can be used abroad the phone will not accept a foreign sim card unless it has been unlocked. There are very few Japanese phones that have been unlocked. The most success has been with the Samsung models (I have an unlocked Samsung SCII from last year), though in the past there have been a few DoCoMo and Vodafone (before it was sold to Softbank) phones that have been unlocked. I haven't seen many newer models get unlocked.
The government here in Japan has actually tried (and I think succeeded) in making unlocking phones here illegal and many of the old unlocking shops in Tokyo have closed down, so unfortunately it's probably going to be next to impossible to use these phones outside of Japan unless you are roaming with a Japanese provider or the manufacturers make their phones for other markets. It's really too bad because there are some awesome phones here and it is really great to have an unlocked phone with Japanese text input for those communicating back to Japan from abroad.
au/KDDI is CDMA and thus cannot be unlocked for use on other carriers. Softbank, Docomo, and e-Mobile 3G-capable handsets use UMTS (with a number of models featuring GSM) and thus will work unlocked elsewhere -- although Softbank and Docomo use UMTS I (2100mhz) while e-Mobile uses UMTS IX (1700mhz, but not T-mobile's UMTS IV 1700mhz), meaning they're useless in North America unless you fall back to GSM.
You can easily get hypersims to unlock the phones without any software hacking -- provided the hypersim works on the given phone -- and it's perfectly legal. What is -illegal- is selling phones to unregistered foreigners, ie: black market. But even if you can use it on UMTS I or are willing to fall back to GSM, you will almost certainly be strictly limited to voice and text. "Japanese" features are almost always hard-coded to carrier specific settings (built-in browser & MMS), have no coverage outside Japan (1seg & keitai-saifu), or simply aren't intended for English markets (no T9, certain carriers break double-byte characters, etc).
So Japanese cellphones are pretty much only high-tech inside Japan; anywhere else and they're just not that special, and it's not because of a carrier-lock.
A quick search on eBay for "Docomo" or "Softbank" will net you the latest UMTS I / GSM offerings that are hypersim-unlockable. Notable are a few of the latest 906i series and of course the aforementioned Samsung series. But of course the selection is limited (and overpriced), and again come gimped when used anywhere else besides Japan.
8.1 MP CMOS camera... me want this very much.... NOT!
mechanical zoom?
quad band?
The phone may look bad but what theve done has never been done befor for a consumer product. Not only in the screen 3.1 in with a 480x800 screen but it's OLED. OLED is the future for all screens and this screen doesn't eat up batttery when compaired to LCD.
Maybe we should all write Casio a letter requesting them release a Quadband GSM Tri-band UTMS for the European and American market......
why is it that Japan gets all the good stuff
cause i really want to get that phone.
Seriously cool piece of kit. Being Casio the camera will be top notch, but how good are they at the mobile phone side of things?
A shame its not coming to Europe, got a feeling it would be a great seller.
Damn it why cant we get this phone in the usa>????
'Cause nobody loves us
I guess that puts me as the only one who thinks that the phone doesn't look THAT good.
But that screen must be awesome.
Love the look, but curious about the durability. I own a casio exilim and it breaks even protected when in a case (not from dropping). I've sent it back for repairs 3 times in one year.
Looks neat.
Looks a lot like the old Sony Clie NX70... how many boats has Sony missed over the last few years? :P
Had the previous 5mpx, this coming out as the upgraded version of that one in the new meaningless fall-winter AU campain.
Bad thing is that it doesn't sports wi-fi, and browsing normal websites kinda sucks compared to other manufacturers products (htc, nokia, apple).
That's why i have it :)
"famous japanese big flip phones"
I remember the time when Casio was duff. So, I'm amazed how suddenly they became such cool.
Japanese internal market is second largest in the world, they don't need to bother dealing with another system.
Damn, that's a nice device. And I only got my X1 on Monday too...
Strange it's not been mentioned that the X1 has the same resolution on the same size screen.