Yes, folks, that day you've been so eagerly awaiting is nearly here. Soon you won't have to suffer the agony of pixel envy on your cellphones thanks to Samsung's M8910 Pixon12 and its whopping 12 megapixel sensor, capturing light through a 28mm wide-angle lens like that in the Nokia N86 (which has a miserly eight megapixels on tap). Sammy's handset has been put through its paces ahead of release, stacked up against the likes of a Canon A620 and a 350D SLR. The phone does quite well, producing images as good or better than its compact competition, but we're not quite sure we agree with the assessment that it "can reach the detail resolved by a true DSLR" -- at least, not in this batch of images. We want to believe, though, we really do; those SLRs are heavy, and we're not a particularly strong bunch.

After failing to show at the Mobile World Congress event in February, Samsung's rumored 12 megapixel cameraphone has finally arrived. Meet the Pixon 12 and its 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a Sammy promise of fast shutter speeds and quick browsing. As a camera, the Pixon 12 (M8910) brings a dedicated shutter button, touch auto-focus (wherever you touch becomes the focal point) that locks in to track moving subjects, Smart Auto mode that adjusts to conditions, and a 28-mm wide angle lens. The unit also saves images relatively quickly (for a cameraphone) so that you can fire off the next shot within 2 seconds. Just remember, more megapixels do not make for better photos especially when jammed tightly into a sensor small enough for a cellphone. And 12 megapixels translates to files ranging from 2MB to 18MB and beyond depending on the compression used (Samsung doesn't say). So ask yourself: is it really worth the storage space and the associated delays when uploading images to Samsung's Share Pix service (with Facebook, Picasa, Flickr integration) over the Pixon 12's built-in WiFi and HSUPA data? No rush, you've got time to decide -- Pixon 12 will be hitting Europe in late June, other regions sometime in August. One more pic after the break.

Update: Full specs just came in: 150MB of on-board storage (up to 16GB MicroSD expansion); quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, HSPA 900/2100MHz; Xenon + Power LED flash; 720 x 480 pixel videos at 30fps; internal GPS, and FM radio with RDS.

It's debatable whether anyone really needs a 10 megapixel cameraphone with a maximum ISO setting of 12800, but plenty of people (ourselves included) really want one, so we're coveting these new pics of Sharp's Aquos 933SH, which also sports a 3.3-inch VGA LCD, 16GB of internal storage, and a "cheese focus" setting that guarantees that your friends' faces and not their fondues will be in focus at your next party. Also handled by Akihabara News is the Miruno 934SH, another high-end model with a more feminine marketing angle that somehow gets by with just eight megapixels on tap, but adds in all sorts of fun (and vaguely demeaning) applications, like a palm reader and a kitchen timer, and is even waterproof so that bath time doesn't have to interrupt gab time. Unsurprisingly there's still no mention of an American release, so don't give up that bathroom speakerphone just yet.

Read - Aquos Shot 933SH Hands-on
Read - Miruno 934SH Hands-on

We won't go so far as to say that SE and LG are waiting for this here technology to go commercial -- after all, we're still years (at best) away from that -- but considering that the ninth iteration of your favorite smartphone is likely destined to boast a 453 megapixel camera, we're thrilled to see someone working to make those captures worth looking at. Over in Japan, Sammy is teasing a new MEMS shutter that measures just 2.2 millimeters in diameter and would essentially allow cameraphones to grab blur-free images even with ultra-high megapixel sensors. Feel free to dive into the read link if you're into technobabble; otherwise, just be sure to pay attention in around a decade when this stuff actually has a bearing on your life.

Put away your smudgycams and break out your wallets, LG's Viewty II has been given the full studio photo treatment as part of an unveiling at LG's official blog. Dubbed the Smart, the GC900 is just 12.4 mm thick (under a half-inch), packing a 3-inch touchscreen on its face and of course that 8 megapixel camera on the back, confirmed to be able to capture video at 720 x 480 and geotag photos using the integrated A-GPS receiver. WLAN and HSDPA are also confirmed, but that's about all the info LG is setting in stone at the moment -- not that we didn't already know everything about it.

Update: Oops! Looks like LG pulled the information -- good thing you looked here first.

[Via Phone Arena]

Here at MWC, the only cellphone maker to actually come forward with proof of a 12 megapixel phone was Sony Ericsson. Still, you know that everyone else is apt to follow suit as quickly as possible, and it seems that LG will be one of the first. In fact, said company "absolutely" has a 12 megapixeler in the works. That's according to Jeremy Newing, LG Mobile's head of marketing in the UK, who also proclaimed that the KS360 would be LG's first Android phone. In his words: "We'll very much be releasing a 12MP cameraphone. However, it's important that people realize when taking 12MP images, they'll be using huge amounts of data, and it will be more difficult to do things like send such files." Honestly, we're a bit tired of the megapixel race -- get an optical zoom onto a slim cellphone, and then we'll talk.

[Thanks, Jimb]

Samsung's long-awaited Memoir has already had its 8 megapixel shooter shown up by Sony Ericsson's 12 megapixel Idou, though the former has one huge leg-up over the latter: the Memoir is shipping to T-Mobile USA in ten days, while the Idou doesn't even have an official name yet. We were able to stop by and see this spectacle live and in-person at Mobile World Congress, and we've got the images and video to prove it. Feel free to peruse the media at your leisure, we're open late tonight.

We didn't doubt it for a second (okay, maybe one second), but Sony's so-called Idou is for real. Though, we wouldn't go memorizing that name or anything, 'cause SE has plans to change it to something more commercial before summer. At any rate, the touchscreen-heavy handset -- which will run Symbian Foundation at launch -- does indeed sport a 12.1 megapixel shooter (which was hinted at last November), which sort of makes the also-just-official Samsung Memoir seem a bit dated already. It's funny too, as the only dozen megapixeler we were actually expecting at this show was from Samsung. We're still waiting on the minutiae, but we do know that it will pack a 3.5-inch panel (640 x 320 resolution; no word on capacitive or resistive) and "full media consumption," a phrase we're still struggling to digest. More as we get it!

At this point, it's tough to say the Memoir wasn't official with a straight face, but Samsung and T-Mobile have jointly disclosed all (er, most) of the remaining details that were so sorely missing here at Mobile World Congress. The 8 megapixel handset will boast a Xenon flash, CMOS auto focus and 16x digital zoom, not to mention a full touchscreen and a sophisticated camera menu that enables users to adjust the brightness and flash, change the default destination of images, select a timer and zoom in or out. Moreover, the video recording and TV-out features should provide even more joy in the lives of multimedia lovers, and the blink detection, face detection, anti-shake and geotagging inclusions should shake off any remaining pundits who say there's not a "real camera" in here. As anticipated, the phone will launch exclusively on T-Mobile USA in just ten days (February 25, if you're too excited for math), though there's still no mention of a price. Procrastinate much?

Update: Boom, pricing -- $249.99 on a two-year contract with a $50 mail-in rebate. Not the cheapest thing we've ever seen, but you get what you pay for, yeah?

It's been a few years since Samsung unleashed its 10 megapixel cameraphone onto the world. Now we're hearing that Samsung will push the limits of absurdity to a full 12 megapixels "this month," likely at Mobile World Congress. The phone is expected to hit the production lines in February with a European debut shortly thereafter. No details are provided other than the picture above used (but not attributed) by Unwired View. If this is the unannounced phone then we can obviously expect GPS geotagging, DivX video capture, and WiFi with DLNA support. One thing is clear: Samsung thinks that Europeans are pixel braggarts with little concern for image quality.

Update: Nope, that image is just a Photoshop of an 8 megapixel Innov8 -- still, we wouldn't be surprised to see the same feature set and industrial design in a 12 megapixel handset.

[Thanks, Robin of Loxley]

There's already similar laws in place in Japan and South Korea, and New York Representative Pete King is hoping that the US will soon have a law requiring that all cameraphones make a noise when they snap a picture as well. To that end, King has re-introduced the so-called "Camera Phone Predator Alert Act," which was actually first introduced in 2007 but went nowhere at the time. The bill, as the name not-so-subtly suggests, aims to prevent folks from taking cameraphone pictures without others people's knowledge by forcing the phones to make a sound that's "audible within a reasonable radius" and not able to be disabled. Somewhat curiously, however, the bill apparently wouldn't apply to digital cameras and, as blogger Thomas Hawk points out, it also doesn't take video into account, or do anything to address the millions of camera-equipped phones currently in use that are able to snap pictures silently. No word on any movement of the bill just yet, but it has picked up one co-sponsor and, on the odd chance it actually becomes law, it'd be enforced by the Consumer Products Safety Commission.

It sounds like your camera phone's video capabilities may get exponentially more awesome in the near future. Aptina -- a division of Micron that manufactures one out of every three sensors for mobile phone cameras -- has announced the high resolution 5 megapixel MT9P013. There are better sensors out there already, but this one will also be able to record 720p HD video at 60 frames per second, and 5-megapixel video at 15fps. The sensor is going into production in January of 2009, according to Aptina, so it shouldn't be too long before we start seeing much better quality amateur films out there in the world.

[Via SlashGear]