In today’s day and age, no one can do without a camera phone or a smart phone. Imagine using a mobile phone without a camera! However, not very long ago humanity survived without these creatures. Being part of that era, I vividly remember in the year 2000, when the SCH-V200 by Samsung was launched in South Korea. It was the first cell phone with a built in digital camera, which was capable of taking 20 photos. As a five-year old, that was more exciting to me than a trampoline. Although, some argue that the first camera phone was produced by Sharp in Japan.

In 2002, the U.S followed the Japanese trend. Sprint launched Sanyo SCP-5300, it had a flash, digital zoom, self timer and few filter effects. In 2004, Sprint launched another phone Audiovox PM8920 with variety of camera settings including a multi shot option for taking more than one photo at the same time. That was quite a revolution.

One of the major boom in the camera phone market happened when Nokia released N90 with a 2-megapixel camera. It also had Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and an LED flash. I still recall N90 being an epitome of affluence among people. Continuing the camera phone modernization, in 2006, Sony Ericsson K800i was released with Sony’s cyber-shot 3.2-megapixel digital camera with auto focus, image stabilization and a xenon flash. The main competitor for Nokia in the field of camera was Sony Ericsson.

The first popular 5-megapixel camera phone was Nokia N95, and it could record video at 30 frames per second. In 2007, IPhone by Apple hit the market, a few months after the Nokia N95. It had a 2-megapixel camera with no video recording capability.

Following up, arrived Samsung i8510 being the first phone with as much as an 8-megapixel camera. Dabbling around the 8-megapixel category, Lg released the first touchscreen camera phone. It was called the LG Renoir.

The race for megapixel continued and Samsung hit 12 megapixel in 2009. Sony was not far behind as hit 16 megapixel in 2010. With increasing competition, the hullabaloo of advanced camera phones began. Both LG and HTC released phones with dual 5-megapixel cameras in 2011. In 2012 Nokia released Lumia 1020 and with a 41 megapixel camera. In 2016, Sony released Xperia XZ Premium, with a 19-megapixel sensor. It also happened to be the first phone that could shoot videos at 960 frames per second. I am sure many of your friends flaunted that phone to you like mine did.

As camera phone technology has progressed over the years, the rat race for better camera is still on. So, the camera phone that you are adoring right now and cannot get enough of will soon be replaced by another advanced new one that pops in the market any day.