Memo to all cameraphone fiends: taking pictures can bankrupt you! Oops, sorry, I already sent that one out. Forbes.com has a story which takes a look at the hidden and often surprisingly humungous cost of using camera phones.
After Daniel Goldstein got a camera phone, he couldn’t wait to put the photos he shot into his computer to work with them. But unlike digital cameras that connect easily to a PC, his Panasonic phone had no cord to connect to transfer images. His only solution was to use the mobile network to send the pictures from his phone to the PC — at 40 cents per picture. The New York University freshman wasn’t happy. ”You buy something, you get excited about it, then there’s this catch,” says Goldstein, 18.
Of course, there is the option of paying $20 a month for unlimited Internet access and sending these photos one at a time as email attachments, if you are a T-Mobile customer.
AT&T Wireless on Oct. 15 kicks off a promotion offering unlimited photo transfers for $4.99 — compared with $15 for Sprint and $19.99 for 200 shots at Cingular.
I cannot wait for the day when someone bitches about that videophone he spent $500 on. Good pictures, but what the f**k!
Om, yes, it’s completely silly. Here in Toronto I once sat across from a certain wireless carrier’s employee who was practically bragging that they’d disabled any image-upload (except via the wireless network) from their phones, as if that were a good thing. Convincing him that the better solution is to let people use these things just like digital cameras, and upload send images every now and again when they really want to was a bit of an interesting debate. 🙂
I’m one of those people that have spent $500 on their phone. I just made sure it had some way of getting stuff in and out of the phone for free.
It’s a P900, it’s got a Memory Stick Duo slot and you can fill it up with MP3s and videos, or take pictures and voice memos and send them to your computer. Via bluetooth or a Card Reader.
If you are getting a phone for it’s features, make sure you have control over those features and it’s not crippled in any way (like the Treo or Sidekick).
Hey leo, you offer great advise. some of us have a tough time finding a good phone. that is why i use treo 600. not exactly stellar but still good enough for now
Bluetooth is the answer. I use it to transfer images from my Nokia 6600 to my PC – fast and easy. I just got back from a holiday and transfered 600 photos to my PC, and had them uploaded to my site in nice albums in no more than 5 minutes total.
Some of the older phones that dont have bluetooth, have infrared support. You can use that infrared ‘port’ to connect to your laptop and transfer images. If you dont have either infrared or bluetooth, you could always use the trusty memory card to transfer snaps onto your PC.
Thanks Om, but I must confess that what I really want is a Treo. The 650 probably (Bluetooth!). The P900 is just too big and ugly.