Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. unveiled the world's first mobile phone with a powerful 5-megapixel camera on Wednesday, targeting the rapidly growing market for handsets with more advanced features.
The South Korean firm, which has been closing in on second-ranked handset maker Motorola Inc., said the SCH-S250 phone would go on sale next week. A price has yet to be set.
Asia's most valuable technology firm introduced its first 1-megapixel cameraphone about a year ago. I t is stepping up development of more sophisticated phones for high-end users looking to access games, music and movies on their handsets.
The new phone provides image quality similar to a top-end digital still camera and has a flat screen capable of displaying 16 million colours, Samsung said in a statement.
Megapixels are the measure of how many million picture elements are captured in a digital snapshot and one of the key ways digital camera makers differentiate their products.
The phone also carries a camcorder feature and text-to-speech conversion capability, enabling users to listen to incoming text messages.
The camera module was developed jointly with Japanese firm Asahi Pentax, Samsung said.
Samsung, which expects to sell more than 86 million handsets this year, sold 22.7 million cellphones in the third quarter, unchanged from the second quarter.
