Phone cameras with up to five megapixels are becoming available, but InVisage, a small firm based in Menlo Park, California, hopes to leap from that to a photographically respectable 12 megapixels, without an increase in size or cost, by adding tiny crystals called quantum dots to the process.

ECONOMIST: Camera-phones

Admittedly, the camera sensor on the cheaper entrant clocks in at five megapixels and there doesn't seem to be a contactless charging case for the Lumia 620 either, but the strongly priced handset could do very well on entry-level contracts -- we'll see when the device lands in Europe Q1 2013.

ENGADGET: Nokia Lumia 620 hands-on: $249 for Windows Phone 8 (video)

The Coolpix 4800 has a resolution of "only" four megapixels, but they do toss in an 8.3x optical zoom lens (it's actually the smallest digital camera with that much optical zoom), which is nice since once most consumers realize they don't need more than four or five megapixels stuff like optical zoom and lens quality is going to be become a bigger and bigger deal.

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Best of all, in this mode Nokia lets you choose between taking full-resolution pictures and snapping PureView shots (eight, five or three megapixels) at standard or wide aspect ratios.

ENGADGET: Nokia 808 PureView review: the future of mobile imaging, wrapped in the smartphone past

But the real selling point of the E1 is its role in HTC's new e-commerce strategy in China: while you can get hold of one at an authorized HTC store, HTC's Chinese "eShop" throws in custom options for the built-in storage (8 or 16GB), main camera (five or eight megapixels, both with only 720p video capture) and one of the six body colors plus patterns.

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But the real selling point of the E1 is its role in HTC's new e-commerce strategy in China: while you can get hold of one at an authorized HTC shop, HTC's Chinese "eShop" throws in custom options for the built-in storage (8 or 16GB), main camera (five or eight megapixels, both with only 720p video capture) and one of the six body colors plus patterns.

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The Coolpix S70 (pictured in red) is essentially the same cam as the S1000pj, although it has an OLED touchscreen instead of the projector: 12.1 megapixels, 5x zoom with five-way VR.

ENGADGET: Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality along with friends