opinions on camera phones?

[topaz]

I get to upgrade my cell phone this week. Because I swill at Verizon's teat, they give me $100 toward one of the phones they're promoting. I really really want to get a camera phone but as usual am having trouble wandering the sea of features and price points. So I turn to you, my loyal readers, for any experience you've had with any of these phones.

My number one issue is price. We're on a severely tight budget, so I don't want to spend money out of pocket if at all possible. Other issues are relative. e.g. obviously I'd prefer a phone with a really awesome camera, but as I already have a pretty snazzy camera this is just for convenience and not worth spending lots of money on. I mean, I'd love to get a Treo but I don't think I can get a special deal out of Verizon for one. :-)

Here are my options as I understand them:

phone	camera	price	comments
Audiovox CDM8910	310Kpix w/flash	$80
LG VX6100	640x480 camera w/flash	$100
Samsung SCH-a670	"VGA" 640x480 camera w/flash	$100	no analog roaming
Motorola V265	"VGA camera", no flash?	$120
Motorola V710	1.2Mpix w/flash	$300	bad reviews
LG VX7000	300Kpixel	$150
Kyocera KX2	1.2Mpix	$220	also reviewed at http://www.livingroom.org.au/cameraphone/archives/kyocera_koikx2.php

(The prices are as listed on Verizon's web site -- I should get $100 off those prices.)

Anyone have any direct experience with these phones? I'm kinda thinking the LG VX6100 looks like the best set of features for the money, but if that one's a real lemon or if one of the others is really fabulous I want to know about it.

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I like my LG VX6000 quite a bit as a phone. I haven't used it as much as a camera as I'd expected. The lack of a flash hampers things more than I'd have thought, so getting one with a flash is probably a good idea. I also find the VGA resolution combined with lack of zoom means that I generally don't get the detail I'm trying to get a picture of-- a higher resolution camera might be a better bet. The VX6000 doesn't have analog roaming, which caused me some trepidation, but it's never caused a problem in practice, and I never used it during the two previous years when I had the capability. Since I've had good experiences with LG thus far, I'd probably be inclined to go with the VX6100 or 7000, but I don't know the other models all that well.

(I had a terrible experience with my last Kyocera phone-- I went through four phones over the course of the contract, and prilicla went through two. That may just have been that phone's design, and Verizon replaced them all with no problem, but I'm inclined to stay away from Kyocera for a while.)

[renniekins.livejournal.com]

I love love love my Treo 600, but it is expensive. (Also, I'm already suffering from 650 envy.)

If they have working models in a store, maybe try taking the same (indoor) pic with each of them and email it to yourself.

This icon was taken with my Treo. Totally irrelevant to your search, but I felt the need to share...

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Treos are cute, but their reception is ass.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

No Nokias? That's a dealbreaker for me. I've tried Motorola and LG phones and i hate them.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Verizon offers Nokias, but only a couple of the really really low-end ones. no picturephones.

I've only had Qualcomm phones since I got a cell -- a QCP-860 for a long time, then this Kyocera for the last two years. What don't you like about the Moto and LG?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The multimedia experience, pretty much. The blinking lights, the cutesy startup and shutdown tones, the scrolling graphics... plus the UI is hosed and backwards versus Nokia's. I don't want an extraordinary audio-visual all-in-one package. I just want a goddamned phone that works inside my house.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

The startup and shutdown tones can be (and on my phone, are) turned off. And I like the blinking lights and scrolling graphics. :-) I haven't seen any problems with the user interface, which is at least better than the Kyocera and Motorola I had before it. (My closest approach to Nokia was when my wife had one three years or so ago.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Well, let me put it this way: i've never had to crack open a Nokia's manual to figure out how to do something. I could not figure out how to shut off the startup and shutdown tones in either the Moto or LG phones. The "hello moto" default ring makes me want to kill (OK, so does the default Nokia ringtone, but even that's not as jarring as "hello moto").

Nokia's menu hierarchy is simple. I don't remember the Moto's setup, but the LG's was a bloody nightmare. It helps that i've been using Nokias for five years, sure, but i consider a cell phone a simple device and its operation should be, well, simple.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

On my LG, it's Settings->Sounds->Power On/Off Tone, which strikes me as pretty straightforward. But as a general rule, I'm not terribly sensitive to UI issues, so I make no claims either way as to how well LG handles it.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to already being aggrieved by the Motorola that, by the time i got the LG, my patience had worn thin for shiny shenanigans.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Hey, what happened to my comment? Assuming its disappearance was an accident, I bravely post it again.

If you get $100 back, you should get the AudioVox. Think about it.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Verizon takes that off the price but doesn't refund the difference if there is one. I could be misremembering, though. (I also remember that the Audiovox models they were pushing during the summer weren't getting great reviews, though these are probably different phones.)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Ho ho! No, you don't "get $100 back," you get "$100 towards the purchase of." Alas!

[lhn.livejournal.com]

And even if you did, I'm not sure that a $20 difference in the up-front cost of the phone should be the deciding factor on a purchase that's going to cost hundreds of dollars in real terms over the life of the contract. Assuming for the sake of example a two-year, $40/month contract, while the difference between it costing $940 and $960 isn't totally irrelevant (twenty dollars is twenty dollars no matter how you slice it), an extra buck a month might be worth it if it makes a noticeable difference in a tool/toy you're going to be using with any level of frequency.

Speaking of which, you'll also want to look at what sort of deals Verizon has on picture messaging packages, and/or what options there are for cables to connect the phone to your computer to download pictures (generally the latter are third-party devices, and they seem to run $30-60 depending on the phone).