Verizon Adds FlipShot Cell Phone With Photo Features

Verizon Wireless on Wednesday made available a new cell phone called the FlipShot by Samsung, specifically designed for photo enthusiasts.

The FlipShot has a built-in 3.0-megapixel camera with digital zoom, camcorder, and a rotating display, which positions photos vertically or horizontally for easier viewing. The phone is PictBridge printing capable, which means users can connect it to a printer via a USB cable and print out their photos.

Additionally, the FlipShot contains Bluetooth for connecting to headsets, stereo, and car kits. It's capable of playing music and video supplied by Verizon Wireless' V-Cast service, and it offers different messaging options like e-mail, mobile instant-messgaing, and chat.

The phone also comes with an application called VZ Navigator, which uses GPS positioning to tell users where they're located, what's nearby, and to provide driving directions. The VZ Navigator service costs $10 a month, or $3 for one-day access.

The FlipShot is currently only available online from Verizon Wireless. It costs $200 with a two-year subscription.

Camera phones are a popular offering by wireless carriers and have become a lot more sophisticated than basic cell phones with built-in cameras. Many now feature high-resolution photo quality, advanced flash, zooming, and color balancing functions, and even the ability to take photos in low light indoors or the bright outdoors.

Nokia last week unveiled the N82, which is an alternative to carrying around a digital camera since it's a smartphone and a 5-megapixel camera in one device. The built-in camera has Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics for taking photos in low light, as well as autofocus DVD-quality video capture.

In October, Sony Ericsson introduced the K850 Cyber-shot, camera phone with a built-in 5-megapixel camera with auto focus, Xenon flash, and video light for a better digital camera experience. It even has advanced features like photo fix for automatically fixing the light balance to create good-quality pictures. The camera phone can take nine pictures at a time, making it easier to choose the best one.