Samsung and Verizon Wireless have beat the rest of the mobile device makers to the punch by rolling out a cell phone with a 3.2 mega pixel digital camera crammed inside. The Samsung a990 has become the highest resolution camera phone available in the American market. The a990 is a full out multimedia experience offering a high resolution auto focus camera, MP3 playback, a video recorder, and full mobile web access.

Nicely enough, the phone is equipped with Bluetooth for headsets and data link, but the phone also supports printing stored photos directly to a Bluetooth enabled printer. Extra data storage is available via microSD and TransFlash memory cards. My favorite new Samsung default feature is a translational text mode for business cards. Just shoot a photo of a business card and the phone's software is able to interpret the text to automatically add a new entry to the phone's contact list.

Verizon definitely has the right idea. The company has also been making a push to educate consumers on their VZ Navigator system that uses GPS chips in the phone to provide real-time driving directions. Seeing as how a single device is now able to provide a telephone, a high quality camera, mp3's, web access, and driving directions, there may not be many other devices that I need to buy. Mark my words: the company that is able to reduce the number of devices I carry to exactly one will be the winner of the technology wars.

Thanks to Mobile Review for defining the Business Card mode, and thanks to Mobiledia for the pictures.