My old cellphone’s battery was dying so I needed a new phone. All the 6 month old models were going for 1 cent each but being a geek I had to go for the newest one.
I ended up getting the AU A5403CA by Casio. It’s biggest feature is it’s one of the first 2 cell phones with a 2 megapixel camera.
It’s also got auto-focus which I’m not sure is a good thing. It’s better then fixed focus for taking different kinds of images but it’s slower than fixed focus. It takes the camera about 2 seconds to focus. You can pre-focus it if you want or as they call it, auto-focus lock. It also has a macro mode.
The phone included a 16meg mini-SD card that goes inside and a mini-SD to SD adaptor. I tried it once and it worked fine in my card reader. But, the phone also came with a recharging base and that base has a USB connector and cable and also came with software for reading the pictures off the cell phone through the base. It’s acutally easier than taking the mini-SD card out since that card is so small.
If that base didn’t have the USB connector, buying one separate with software would have been about $70.
The phone, also has a small light to work like a flash. It’s not a flash but it will light up your friend’s face if you are taking a picture in a dimly light restaurant.
Here’s just one completely random picture
If you click on the image you can see the original image taken directly from the phone. The only thing to notice other than the interesting sweater is that it’s not a bad picture. In fact I’d argue it’s better than quite a few of the Sony DSC-P series models and certainly better than many of the lower end 1-2 megapixel cameras of the last few years.
Like I said, cell phones are going to replace cameras for all those people that are happy with simple point and shoot cameras which is most people. One of the reasons I got this phone was specifically because I wanted a “party” camera and my other camera, a Sony DSC-F505, which by the way also only has a 2 megapixel sensor, is not a good party camera. It’s not good for talking pictures of your freinds across the table. I had 3 choices. Live it with, get a new camera that is good for that or get a cell phone with a good enough camera. One less thing to carry, I choose the last one.
While it was a little expensive, like I mentioned, all the 6 month old models were being blown out for $0.01 each and all of those had cameras. This one will be no exception, in 6-9 months it too will be at clearence prices. So the excuse that cell phone cameras will be to expensive is not an issue.
Otherwise, the phone has what is almost standard now in Japan, a 240×320 display. It’s amazing how much better it looks than my old phone and that phone looked way better then my previous phone before that.
Being AU it also has GPS. It doesn’t have the real-time walking navi type of GPS but you can get a map of where you are or “door to door” map of where you want to go. On a 240×320 screen the maps are much much more readable than they were on my old phone.
Finally it can take movies as well. They are stored in a proprietary format but fortunately Quicktime 6.3 plays them. There is one mode which will take a movie until you fill the mini-SD card. I’m not sure how long that would be.
A friend has the same phone. Just as you said, the light is only good for brightening up a friend’s face on the other side of a small table. It’s better than nothing and a lot brighter than most of the so called flash lights I’ve seen in other phones.
What do you think of the INFOBAR? If I was to switch to au I’d probably do it just for this phone. It’s thin, light and stylish.
http://www.au.kddi.com/seihin/kinobetsu/seihin/infobar/index.html
They are cool looking but my first cell phone in Japan was an open phone like that instead of the folding kind and what would happen was the buttons would get pressed in my pocket which would turn the light on the display which would run down the batteries.
Yes, you can lock the keyboard but it’s a pain in the ass. So, for me at least I would not consider an Infobar.
I think you had the same Sharp camera phone that I did. You have to read the manual to find out how to lock it with the big middle button and I didn’t figure out how to get it to lock until I read the manual. At first I thought it was just a stupid design problem. My first phone had a dedicated lock switch on the side which is the best solution.
Why do you think that au nearly always has the best looking phones?
I’ve just arrived Tokyo and inherited a CAsio A5403CA — does anyone have a manual in English that you could send to me?
I googled for a5403ca pdf english the very first hit was the manual.