By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter


Samsung Electronics, the world’s third-largest cell phone producer, proves it is a cut above its rivals in the pixel count war for handsets by unveiling the first 8-megapixel camera phone.

Samsung president Lee Ki-tae, who is in charge of the company’s mobile phone unit, Thursday took the wraps off the top-end gadget, the SPH-V8200, at an event aimed at explaining its future strategy to analysts.

``This model is by no means inferior even to an expert-class digital camera since it is armed with many advanced features. We plan to market this phone in the domestic market later this month,’’ the 57-year-old said.

In addition to the 8-megapixel camera module, the SPH-V8200 is equipped with a 16-million-color thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) monitor and an auto focus function.

In fact, Samsung has spearheaded the world in incorporating the highest-pixel camera module into a cell phone since it disclosed 5-megapixel camera phone, SCH-S250, last November.

The nation’s most profitable firm stunned the world once again in March by displaying a 7-megapixel camera phone, the SCH-V770, at the CeBit 2005, an annual high-tech fair in Hanover, Germany.

The two gizmos are on sales only in the Korean market, where is abuzz with tech-savvy early adopters, at almost 1 million won per unit.

The most closest competitor to Samsung in the pixel-count war is its cross-town rival LG Electronics, the fourth-largest maker of cell phone in the world, as it developed a 5-megapixel phone this year.

Plus, Lee showed a phone, which can feature both technologies of mobile broadcasting developed in Korea, satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) and terrestrial DMB.

The dual DMB phone, the SPH-B4100, has a 2.2-inch monitor that can be swiveled for the convenient view and will hit the shops next month in time with the start of terrestrial DMB service.

The DMB enables people on the move to savor seamless video, CD-quality audio and data through an in-car terminal or handheld gadgets like a cell phone.

Korea started satellite DMB service in July and more than 200,000 has signed up for it and terrestrial DMB will also be launched next month.

Lee added the development of multimedia wonder is underway, a phone with 10-gigabyte internal memory, which will be able to save 3,000 music files.

``In comparison to iPod Nano of Apple Computers that has a 4GB memory, our envisioned phone will have about 10GB storage,’’ Lee said.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr