CeBIT 2008 - Previewing The Trends

Cybershot C702 - Digital Camera With Geo-Tagging

Since 2005, Sony's cell phones have been following an evolutionary path leading ever closer to becoming full-fledged digital cameras. Naturally, the new Cyber-Shot series can take photos, too. Additionally, Sony-Ericsson is following the current trend, also equipping this model with a GPS module.

Sony Ericsson's Cyber-shot C702

Cell-phone and smart phone makers already showed us where the trends were going at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the beginning of the year. The new generation of products is allowed to be a little pricier, as long as they come with a full set of features. Today, that list includes taking pictures, managing your calendar and schedule and of quad-band telephony. With its iPhone, Apple showed us how to improve the ease of use of modern cell phones and sent the competition off to do their homework. However, one feature that has been absent from iPhone-class cell phones (so far) is GPS navigation.

With its Cyber-Shot C702, Sony Ericsson prove that such practical features are no longer reserved for the more refined and much more expensive smart phones such as the Xperia X1 (See also - iPhone faces competetion from Xperia X1). The C702 features a 3.2 megapixel camera with a lens cover. In general, this phone seems to have been designed with the outdoors-type in mind, as protected against dust and splash water. Thanks to its robust casing, it is also quite shock resistant. The real highlight is the combination of an upper-class cell-phone camera and the integrated GPS module. The former possesses a face-recognition feature, the latter can naturally be used for conventional navigation using Google Earth, for example. Together, the two can be used for geo-tagging, where GPS coordinates are stored alongside the image metadata when you take a picture. Thus, you'll always know where a certain picture was taken. Optionally, serial images can also be displayed in a location-dependent mode.

The remaining feature set corresponds to that of modern cell phones. The camera features 2x digital zoom, an MP3 player is integrated as well (naturally), data transfers are handled either via USB or Bluetooth, and HSDPA/EDGE networks are also supported. The Cyber-Shot C702 will cost around €340 without a service plan.

Sony Ericsson Mobile's stand is located in Hall 26/C40 .