Thomas W.P. Slatin

Growing up as a younger Thomas, one of the greatest advancements in phones was the new cellular phone. No more did someone have to search high and low through dark city streets to use one of those annoying public pay phones when you could simply pick up your cinderblock-sized cell phone and call someone.  At the time, technology wasn’t what it is today with pocket phones so small that should you misplace them, they’re lost forever. When the cell phone was first invented, it was bulky, heavy, and needed to be plugged in directly to a 12 volt outlet.  Service was terrible as there were only cellular antennas located in major cities and urban areas. And back then, the only thing that a cellular phone did was place cellular phone calls, and at a steep price as well.

Today that’s all changed.  I recently upgraded my cell phone to be equipped with the latest cutting-edge technology, which is sure to be far outdated just months from now. My previous cell phone only had capabilities such as text messaging, and phone calls, whereas my new model has these features plus a lot more.

The latest fad, if you will, in cell phones is a cell phone that also works as a digital camera. While the picture quality is poor, many of the newer cell phones allow you to increase picture quality.  Unfortunately, higher quality also equates to slower performance, increased use of storage memory, and well, fewer pictures being able to be stored on its tiny memory allocation.  Being that this so-called, camera phone technology has been out for quite a long time (a few months, maybe), I thought that it would be a good time to upgrade my phone to maintain the technological standard, which for all I know has long since moved on.

Look at this interesting and informative table!

I used my cell phone for the first time last week and noticed that there was absolutely no improvement in the sound quality, waiting time for service, or more cell phone service coverage.  In fact, one or more of these, “improvements” actually declined a little bit.  But the truth of the matter is that it is now possible to picture message someone.  Gone are the days when you actually had to be articulate and describe something to someone, when all you have to do is take a picture and then send it to their phone, PDA, e-mail inbox, or any other place you might want to send it!

So, in yet another feeble attempt to keep up with technology, I snapped a photo of Oswald, a 1-year old Dachshund puppy that belongs to Angie and me and then sent via e-mail it to my mom and dad.  After about 30 seconds of transmitting the file, the phone beeped and an alert message popped up and said that the transmission was successful. Of course, I e-mailed myself a copy of the image just to see what kind of high quality could be achieved.

What you are seeing here is the actual photo that was sent.  Of course, we had to scale it down some to make it fit on the page. To see the actual unaltered version, simply click anywhere on the image.

As you can see, the picture quality isn’t that great but what can you really expect from a cell phone with a camera built into the back when you consider that the phone itself was FREE with a 2-year contract?  Unfortunately, right after I sent the image, I learned that it my service provider, whom will not be named, charges $0.25 USD per image sent or received! Since my particular phone can hold in its memory, 40 “high quality” images, that figures roughly $10 USD to send all 40 images!

So, the moral of this story is that cellular phones were meant to be used as phones, and as nothing else.  If, however, you chose to use them for any other purpose such as sending photos of things that in all honesty, people really don’t care to look at (such as that stupid new pink lawn flamingo you just placed on your lawn), you will be charged a small fee accordingly.

If you’re still considering getting your own, check out this (outdated) page filled with models of phones and their photo examples.

Special thanks to Cockeyed.com for the, “telephoto” examples!