Camera phones

I used to have this view that a product should stay true to its function. That cameras should be cameras, walkmans be walkmans and phones should be phones.

I scoffed at the advent of the camera phone. I thought of it as something suited more for the needs of voyeurs rather than as an innovation.

I still liked cameras. The bad thing about cameras is that the good ones are bulky. And the little ones are user friendly. But they take up additional baggage space, and by the time they are brought out and readied, the moment you'd wanted to capture would be long gone.

And one day my trusty old Nokia conked. (I think that's what happened. I have a very dazy memory)

Hence arose the need to get a new phone. I looked high and low and finally decided to go for a mobile with the features of a camera, music player and a USB storage device.

There were simply too many products in town, and most of them fitted the bill. Which takes me back to 'Casino Royale'.

I was in Bombay when Casino Royale had released in India. There was a lot of brands' ads embedded in the movie. Be it the Aston Martin or the Sony Ericsson. Bond was using Sony Ericsson K800 AND K790 CyberShot models in that movie.

Product placements.. They sure know how to plant subliminal messages.

Sony Ericsson K790i is a pretty good phone. K800i was a bit more expensive. The cheaper option was taken! There was one more model called the K810 which was more compact. But the classic looks of the K790i had me at first sight.

Serving me strong for quite some time now it has been. Through rains and impacts. Through extreme malhandling. It even fell into a bucket of water once. I don't know how it has survived so far!

I carry the phone with me usually, and when a photo moment pops up, I whip out the cam phone and click it. A much simpler procedure than unzipping a camera, taking off the lens cover, etc, etc. Now I have started to think that every thing should be integrated.

Maybe they will integrate a fridge with the phone in the future.