camera phones have become a hit among 13-to-24-year-olds, according to a study released recently by InfoTrends of Weymouth, Mass. Although finding that a "significant number of those in this GenZ population indicated that they send or receive text messages on a daily basis, and nearly the same percentage use their cameras for taking pictures," InfoTrend researchers found that the number of people using their camphones as their primary picture capturing device remains small-only 15 percent of consumers.

"It is clear that camera phones will not replace traditional digital cameras any time soon," InfoTrends' Associate Director of Internet Imaging Service Alan Bullock observed in a statement.

"Nevertheless," he added, "ongoing improvements to image quality and ease-of-use will eventually enable camera phones to be highly regarded as image capture devices."

A glimpse of those "ongoing improvements" could be seen this week when Samsung introduced its G800 ($500) camera phone. Here are some of the features of the mobile's camera.

• 5 megapixel resolution.


• 3x optical zoom.


• Face detection.


• Image stabilization.


• Xenon flash.


• Panorama mode.


• Video mode.


• PictBridge support.