It's probably best to think of Samsung's Pixon 12 not as a phone with a killer camera, but more so as a good point-and-shoot with phone capabilities tacked on. Our friends at Engadget Chinese managed to get some hands-on with the device, and while they say the voice and SMS portion is nothing to write home about, the form factor and AMOLED screen seems quite nice and the sample pictures come out even nicer. Hit up the read link for some odd, machine-translated text and pretty photography.

We might still have debates over whether the SCH-W880 represents a cameraphone or our newly minted category of phonecamera, but there's no doubt about this: the Samsung AMOLED 12M is now official and coming to (at least) Korea in October. The specs align closely to yesterday's info, with a 3x optical zoom, 720p video recording, dedicated camera controls, and a 800 x 480 3.3-inch AMOLED display grabbing the headlines. Touch AF makes use of the touchscreen to let you choose focus areas, while image stabilization and Smart Auto modes fill out the software side of the camera. That leaves us with scant little info on the actual phone, but you could probably fill those specs in yourself by now, right? Full PR after the break.

[Via Samsung Hub]

In a welcome reversal of trends, Samsung just stuffed a 3G cellphone into a 12 megapixel camera making this M8920 / SCH-W880 more of a camera than most 12 megapixel cameraphones can claim. While this presumed follow-up to Samsung's Pixon 12 (M8910) isn't official, the announcement looks imminent based on the leaked collateral above and the spyshots that emerged over the weekend. What's impressive here is that extending 3x optical zoom -- something carried over from the SCH-B600 -- and dedicated camera controls like a mode dial, shutter and zoom, and big 3.3-inch WVGA AMOLED display. Rounding out the specs are HD (720p presumably) video, HSDPA data, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, microSD slot, and DMB mobile television; that latter spec making this Korea-only whenever it does launch. See her in the wild after the break.

[Via HDBlog.IT]

October 7th is like, what, just under a fortnight away? But we know good and well that's not making it any easier to wait for Sony Ericsson's 12.1 megapixel Satio to launch across the pond. If you're eager to live vicariously through a well-connected individual over on YouTube, you can hop on past the break right now to see the phone unboxed (in all three colors, no less) and detailed to a level that only a true SE fanboy could treasure. And that includes you, over there in the closet...

[Thanks, Simon]

There once was a time when a 12 megapixel cameraphone would have been laughed at, and, though many are still smirking (guilty), they're now a reality -- a reality that Altek wants desperately to be a part of with its T8680 handset. Its face looks rather like a PMP with a 3-inch WQVGA LCD, but on the back is the standard sort of 3x pop-out zoom that you'd expect on a compact shooter, sitting next to a tiny xenon flash. It'll capture unnecessarily high resolution images while being crippled to VGA video, play back MP3 and AAC files, and tune into the Weekly Top 40 over FM. Yes, it'll even make calls, but with only tri-band GSM/EDGE support don't expect to e-mail those gigantic pictures directly from the phone. The T8680 is expected to hit Chinese retailers in about a month for 3000 yuan (about $440), and probably won't be making much of an appearance elsewhere.

[Via GSM Arena]

Samsung just pulled a bit of a "Samsung" and completely blew out its Omnia lineup. We just got some face time with the new Omnia II, Omnia Pro, Omnia Lite and the Omnia-inspired Jet, along with the Pixon 12 -- which runs the same in-house Samsung OS as the Jet, but packs a 12 megapixel camera. It's hard not to notice the stunning AMOLED screens on these phones, especially up against the dull-by-comparison Omnia Lite with its petty LCD. Unfortunately, while the build quality is good and the specs are certainly all there, all the phones were fairly slow in regular operation. The Jet and Pixon were passable (and the Jet certainly ought to be, with an 800MHz "application processor"), but we can't imagine anybody finding any pleasure in the molasses Windows Mobile 6.1 experiences on the Omnia trio. The Jet has a fun little 3D UI "cube" gimmick, which involves the pointless spinning of a cube to access different media apps, but most of what we saw was pretty standard TouchWiz. We did like the speed of Pixon's camera, which does a Pre-style trick of sending photo processing duties to the background so you can snap another photo with little delay in between -- it's also pretty good at auto focus and color accuracy for a phone, but we won't be trading in our regular point and shoot in the near term. None of the phones we looked at had network access, so we weren't able to test out the WebKit browsers, but it sounds like a major win for the Jet and Pixon. Let's just work on that Omnia responsiveness a bit, yeah Samsung? Perhaps Windows Mobile 6.5 (the Omnia II and Omnia Pro are 6.5-ready) will help.

After failing to show at 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 changing depending upon conditions, and 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 on-board storage (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.

We've already investigated every single nook and crannie involved in Sony Ericsson's 12 megapixel Idou, but here's something we haven't seen: an associated stylus. It's difficult to tell at the moment if SE plans to toss this in with the Idou (or whatever it ends being called) like Nokia did when it threw in a guitar pick with the 5800 XpressMusic, but either way, you can consider our interest piqued. Not that we're fans of using a stylus over our own digits, mind you, but we are fond of random, if not unnecessary accessories. Save the lecture, we realize that's odd.

[Thanks, Jesper]

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]

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!

Okay, so a recap is definitely in order here. Merely 11 days ago, a flurry of rumors about Samsung's Mobile World Congress plans filtered out, which just so happened to include word of a 12 megapixel cameraphone. Then, the outfit itself leaked nine new models, giving just a wee bit of credence to the whispers we'd heard. Following that, we even saw a certain UK branch get ahold of one of its flagship models prior to the show, while it casually mentioned that no Android-based phones would be on display. Now, the other most awesome handset (er, rumored handset) is being squashed for a MWC debut, as Telecoms Korea has it that no dozen-megapixel phone is coming to Barcelona. No worries, though -- you'll have plenty to gawk at between the Blue Earth and the Ultra Touch S8300.

[Via Samsung Central, thanks David]

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.

It's tough to predict the future, especially with cutbacks to R&D budgets in the face of a global economic slowdown. Still, it's always nice to see a forward-looking corporate-slide related to mobile handsets from the taller, blonder half of that Sony Ericsson partnership. LTE and fast CPUs are certainly no surprise, nor is that 1,024 x 768 XGA screen resolution that Japan's superphones are already bumping up against. The most compelling vision is that of the embedded camera sensors: 12-20 megapixels capable of recording Full HD video by 2012. Adding more fuel to firey speculation that handsets are about to find themselves embroiled in a megapixel war. Fine by us, just as long the optics and image processing are there to support such a resolution. Even though 12-20 megapixels seems high compared to the 5-8 megapixel cell phones we see today, those numbers are entirely within reason when you recall that Samsung hit 10 megapixels in Korea two years ago. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised in the least to find Ericsson's mythical device on the market well prior to 2012. Combined, these features certainly make for a tantalizing glimpse at the wireless handset future.