Samsung p730 is the first cell phone with 1 mega pixel camera. It is packed into a clamshell design with optional swiveling i.e. lift, twist and rotate. This cell phone was introduced at CeBit 2004. Keep one thing in mind that this article is based on the pre production model of Samsung p730, Samsung may modify or release other features when this phone will be released in the market.

Samsung p730 as a camera

One of the important features that Samsung p730 has is its camera. This time the camera is fixed at the back, but the LCD can rotate almost in any direction, thus giving you options for taking pictures. When the phone is in landscape mode, its very user friendly to just take the pictures. The camera also supports multishot mode. Furthermore, digital imaging is supported by built in 50 Mb memory and an additional slot for MMC card. There are a lot of shooting modes and effects plus there is an option of zoom.

Samsung p730 as a camcorder

Samsung p730 can record video in MPEG 4 format. The preset recording modes are CIF (352x288), QVGA (320x240), QCIF (176x144) and Sub-QCIF (128x96). The video clips look very fine on the phone screen. Video can be recorded until there is space in the memory. MMS videos have a limit of 100 kb. You can also use one of the effects while recording the video.

Other new features

Samsung p730 has a 262 k TFT color screen which is still very rare in cell phones. Same is the case with 64 polyphony tones. The phone has 3d games and also can act as an mp3 player. The MMC card technology is also the latest i.e. RSMMC (reduced size MMC). In terms of weight it can't be said a light weight phone i.e. 126 grams. In connectivity options, IrDa is there but there is no Bluetooth.

Conclusion

The picture quality is at par with other cell phone cameras of Motorola and Nokia, and the video quality is even better than the rest. There are no major synchronization problems too. For Samsung lovers, it is a great phone especially who want to upgrade from Samsung p400. Its price will also decide its position in the market. If the Samsung p730 got a competition with sony ericsson s700i, then I think that the sonyericsson will win the battle due to a better camera.