Samsung Pixon 12 M8910 hands-on photos

Achtung! It's hot here in Berlin, and we're eating a lot of ludicrously lengthy sausages -- pork and beef, we're told. Also, covered in slime. But it's not all continental meaty treats: we've also managed to finger Samsung's 12-megapixel camera phone -- the Pixon 12, aka the M8910.

This is one of two 12-megapixel phones we've seen (Sony Ericsson's Satio being the other), and Samsung's gone the whole hog and grafted a xenon flash on its greasy little face, just like a real camera. Most phones, if they have even a flash, just use bright LEDs and this typically smears your photos with a delicate yellowy gunk.

But the Pixon 12 does photography well, and the photos are terrific -- for a phone. Don't be fooled by big ol' double-digit megapixel numbers, fools -- most real 12-megapixel digital cameras will still take better photos. Check out a 4,000x3,000-pixel pic we captured with the new Pixon, and see what thou thinketh.

Other features include a vivid 79mm (3.1-inch) AMOLED touchscreen (resistive, sadly), fast HSDPA and HSUPA Internet connectivity, a front-facing camera for video calling, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and support for DivX and MPEG-4 video.

The phone will play your MP3s too, naturally, but there's no 3.5mm headphone socket, so you'll need to use a pathetic adaptor if you want to plug in your cans. This is a big shame.

Other shames include having a total pile of schildkrote for a Web browser. We appreciate this isn't a phone built for cruising the 'tubes, but if you're going to go to the effort of building a phone with a super-fast Internet connection, then seriously, at least make with the Opera Mini or something. There's also practically no internal memory -- just 150MB -- so you'll need a microSD card.

To conclude, when we weren't trying to browse the Web or listen to music, we enjoyed our time with the Pixon 12. It's not the simplest of phones out there, but it'll give photo bloggers something to consider if you're not taken with Sony Ericsson's 12-megapixel Satio. More pics over the page, and the phone's on sale now.