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It used to be that Cameraphones were phones with useless little cams attached to attract consumers, mainly to allow people to send cute pictures by SMS or to support video conferencing, which is still by and large a vapofeature in most phones.

Over the last year or so, the cameras attached to phones have become better and better, until in some models, the phone part is almost an afterthought. “What other feature can we put in our new 9 Megapixel camera, Sir?"" I know, let’s make it a phone too!”

I have a feeling just such a discussion was held when Sharp was designing the 923SH. A new phone coming to Softbank in Japan, the 923SH looks like a camera with a little telephony included. The screen is massive, capable of VGA resolution and can spin to landscape mode for viewing (no word yet if can also change into a large, fighting robot). If you need to take or display a lot of photos or videos with a mobile device, then this may be the ideal phone for you.

Here are the specs according to 3G Week:

1. 3.3” AQUOS ASV Full widescreen in VGA resolution (854×480)
2. 5.2 MP camera with a CMOS sensor AF
3. GPS
4. 1Seg tuner
5. microSDHC slot (up to 4GB)
6. Bluetooth
7. TouchCruiser sensor, a system allowing you to move around the screen without passing through the directional pad and the Video recorder function.
8. 3G with W-CDMA (Japanese networks), GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz)
9. Lexicon and a map-key for direct web access to Wikipedia and Yahoo! Japan Maps.

The built in maps function (to go with the GPS) is a nice touch considering the size of the screen and the 1Seg tuner will allow the unit to receive TV signal in Japan (with that screen, why not?).

On the down side, it looks like that phone would be heavy and large, a VGA brick in your pocket.

As for the Touch Cruiser feature, I am not at all sure what they mean by that description. I think it means you can control some of the function by gesturing with the phone rather then touching a button. If so, that could be very useful if you don’t want to disrupt filming by fumbling about with buttons.

I can’t say the Sharp 923SH  appeals to me as a phone…but it is certainly an interesting concept. What’s next…IMAX: The Phone?

Zealot (444 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).