I got interested to blog about camera phone images and resolution when a reader emailed me asking what is the difference between a mobile phone with a CIF camera and one with a VGA camera.

Like what I said in my previous blog about Image format of your mobile phones, it differs with the resolution or the size of the image. Now let’s talk about megapixel resolutions or mobile phones with cameras that can produce megapixel photos.

Phonescoop gives a very straight to the point and easy to understand description of what this is all about:

Megapixel refers to the size of an image, usually in reference to a photo from a digital camera or camera phone.

Megapixel means one million pixels. The resolution of digital cameras and camera phones is often measured in megapixels.

Since pixels are usually square and form a grid, a 1-megapixel camera will produce an image roughly 1200 pixels wide by 900 pixels high.

By comparison, a VGA image (640 x 480 pixels) would be only 0.3 megapixel.

Megapixel images (1 megapixel or greater) are much larger than a phone display, so a megapixel camera will not make much difference compared to a sub-megapixel camera for phone-only applications such as MMS.

Rather, megapixel cameras are useful for taking photos suitable for viewing on a PC and/or printing. Sub-megapixel cameras produce smaller images that only print well at very small sizes.

So, the next time you’re buying a mobile phone with a camera, you know what to pick. This will help you not to get fooled for there are mobile phones with cameras in the market today saying that they are a megapixel camera phone but when you use the camera its just a VGA or CIF one.