Becky made an excellent point yesterday. When I get my new iPhone 4 next week*, it’ll be the first time I’ve ever owned a cell phone with a decent camera. (My 2006 vintage Sprint flip phone takes grainy 640x480s — a marked improvement over my previous, 2003 vintage Sprint flip phone, which took 384x256s.) And, by all accounts, the iPhone’s is not just a decent camera; it’s an awesome camera. Five-megapixel, crystal-clear, true-color photos; 720p, high-quality HD videos. In both cases, that’s better than my point-and-shoot camera, the Canon PowerShot A95 that I carry with me virtually at all times in a little Quantaray belt pack.
Which brings me to the “end of an era” referenced in the title. Ever since I bought my first digital camera in 1999 — a huge, bulky Sony Digital Mavica that saved photos to floppy disks — I’ve brought a digital camera just about everywhere I go, always wanting to be able to snap a picture if anything interesting or newsworthy or beautiful happens. Nowadays, that means looping that Quantaray pack onto my belt every morning when I’m getting ready for work, or anytime I’m heading out to run errands, or whenever. (It also means I almost always wear a belt, even when I’m dressed casually and wearing jeans or shorts, precisely so I can have my camera with me, snug in its belt pack.)
Mind you, I own two digital cameras now, the A95 and a digital SLR, the Digital Rebel XTi — and most of my good pictures are taken with the Rebel. Even so, I still virtually never leave the house without the A95. I only take the Rebel with me when I’m actually expecting to take pictures, but the A95 goes everywhere with me because hey, you never know when I’m going to want a snapshot, or a quick low-quality (320×240) movie, of something.
Once I get my iPhone, though, I imagine that will change. If I’m right that, for most purposes, the iPhone is a better camera than the A95 — and, in any event, takes pictures that are more than adequate to serve the purpose of having a basic point-and-shoot on hand if anything camera-worthy unexpectedly happens or appears — why would I keep hauling the A95 around in my dorky belt pack? Sure, it’s got an optical zoom and a “real” flash, both of which the iPhone lacks. But I swear its picture quality has somehow degraded in recent years, and in any event the iPhone’s should be better; and the A95’s video quality will, I suspect, look unbearably awful once I start shooting video clips with the iPhone.
Anyway, the point is, I imagine I’ll start simply bring my phone everywhere I go (duh), and that’ll be all I need. And the belt pack will join the fanny pack (ahem) as a thing of the past.
*…or next weekend or early the following week, depending on what AT&T does.
My English and Australian friends get a kick out of us talking about fanny packs…….
Wait…you stopped using the fanny pack? That’s just not Brendan…
What about the Velcro shoes though?
Besides, in a few months you’ll get an iPad, and start walking around with a man bag… it’s okay… we understand….
Heh. I haven’t worn the Velcro shoes for years, actually, or the fanny pack for that matter. (I only ever wore the fanny pack when I was traveling or carrying around a bunch of lenses/electronics for some reason.)
And alas, I don’t foresee getting an iPad anytime soon. Spending $700+ on two iPhones (including taxes, cases, etc.), plus $55 more per month on our cell phone bill than we were paying previously, more than exhausts my “electronic toys” budget for some time. And if I had more in that budget, lenses for my Digital Rebel XTi and a true HD camcorder would be ahead of an iPad on the wish list.
Shoot man, are you getting titanium cases or are Colorado taxes ridiculously high??? $700?!? Did you do something crazy and get two 32 gig phones?? I don’t know if your employer will qualify for a discount, but you should see if you get anything under your various Alumni associations. I got almost a 20% plan discount through UW. It’s not a boatload but it’s something!
Did you do something crazy and get two 32 gig phones??
Yep. One for me, one for Becky.
Good look filling those up. I haven’t come close on my 16gb including ALL my music.
My iTunes Library has 21.25 GB in it. 😛
And do you REALLY think they all need to be on your iPhone 😉
Well, yeah, kinda. I have a 30 GB iPod, and I like that I can put my entire iTunes Library on it, and not have to think about what’s there and what isn’t. I don’t have to take the time to go through all 5,000 songs and organize them into iPod and non-iPod piles. And if I’m out with the iPod, and I suddenly decide I want to listen to a song I haven’t heard in a while and might not have on a favored playlist, I can find it and listen to it. I don’t have the frustrating situation, like I do when I’m listening to music on my 8GB iPod touch, of wanting to hear a particular song and then realizing, oh never mind, it’s not here.
And since I want my new iPhone to basically REPLACE my iPod (as well as my point-and-shoot camera), it needs the same capacity. So yeah, those extra 16 GBs are easily worth the extra $100 to me.
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