Comparing cameraphone image quality can be a tough nut; apart from obvious things like poor focus or grainy quality, it can be a pretty subjective beast. PhoneArena went wild with high end handsets to give us a "thousand-angle" view of what it takes to stand out in an über (notice the umlauted u? We don't do that often, so this is serious business) shootout between three 3 megapixel cams -- including the D900, K800, and N93i -- and the KG920 and N95 at 5 megapixels. Each handset is put through a series of grueling tests including shooting outdoors, night shots, and macro mode with points awarded based on how they fare in each challenge. We won't spoil the read for you, but as a hint the winner rhymes with "okia." Hit the read link to check it out.

[Thanks, Orhan C]

While Samsung was looking the other direction we caught a quick hands-on of the Ultra Edition 12.9 (aka D900) slider. It's as thin as they say (ok, thinner), with a slick slider spring, fast input response, and looks to write home about. We may not all be in agreement over Samsung's choice of user interfaces, but somehow we think few will take issue with this sucker. Click on for some more shots.

Get ready Guinness 'cause Samsung just launched an entire series of "World's slimmest" handsets. Sure, we've seen the D830 clam, X820 candybar, and FCC approved D900 slider before, only now they've been turned-out onto that mean global scene official, spec'd, and rebadged with their ultra-slim, millimeter measurements right in the name: the Ultra Edition 9.9 (D830), 12.9 (D900), and 6.9 (X820) pictured left-to-right. The UE 9.9 brings tri-band (900/1800/1900MHz) GPRS/EDGE, a 2 megapixel cam with auto-focus and flash, a 2.3-inch 240x320 262k TFT main display (0.8-inch 92x16 grayscale external), Bluetooth, 80MB embedded memory with MicroSD expansion, MP3/AAC media player, and even an MPEG4 recorder with TV-out jack slammed into this world's slimmest flip. The UE 6.9 brings pretty much the same network coverage, cam, Bluetooth, media capabilities, and on-board memory as the 9.9 but had to forgo the microSD card and flash while dropping down to a 1.9-inch 176x220 262k TFT display in order to slip into that world's slimmest, 6.9-mm, 2.33-ounce dress. The relatively plump UE 12.9 takes advantage of all that, uh, roominess to squeeze in quad-band GPRS/EDGE, a 3.13 megapixel shooter, 2.1-inch 240x320 262k TFT, that good media lovin' we've already seen, Bluetooth with A2DP stereo audio support, and 80MB with microsSD expansion. Yeah, that makes it the world's slimmest slider, er, with 3 megapixel camera -- kind of a stretch, but that's how Sammy likes to roll. They didn't bother with drop dates, countries, or prices but the fact that the press release hit their English site gives us hope for this Samsung triptych to drop in the US sometime this year.

[Via AVING]