Panasonic to unveil a 13MP Lumix phone?

Panasonic is sending out invitations for the CEATEC 2010 show next week, with a Lumix phone being the topic of the day. Now this is where it gets confusing. The press release, translated crudely by Google, states that starting today Panasonic will be revealing a little bit about the phone until the grand unveiling on October 5th at CEATEC 2010.

In the promo writeup, however, it says something about "3M (1536 × 2048) corresponds to the size of the image". A glimpse further down on the specs table states "Cameras... Approximately 13.2 million pixels (effective) CMOS". Other notable features include a 3.3" screen with 480x854 pixels of resolution, a Mobile VenusEngine for the HD pictures and video processing, high-intensity flash, Wi-Fi and DLNA support. The size is fairly compact 116×52×17.7mm (4.56x2.04x0.69 inches) with 146g (5.15oz) of weight.

Now, off to speculations. We'd wager to say the 3MP translation is either a typo, or the front-facing camera, since we doubt Panasonic will try to create hype over a 3MP cameraphone. Considering the strengths of Panasonic's Lumix line of digital cameras to be multiple optical zoom and image stabilization, in a compact body, it is disappointing that it only says digital zoom in the promo. Our wishful thinking for a moment was that the 13MP phone comes with Android (although there are 13MP cameraphones on the Japanese market, using Symbian, like the Fujitsu F-06B), and optical zoom.

Most likely this Lumix phone is a feature phone, will never see the outsides of Japan, and the 14MP Altek Leo with Android will reign as the supreme optical zoom smartphone worldwide for times unknown.

What do you think? We will know more pretty soon anyway - the announcement is scheduled for next Tuesday.

source: Panasonic