Thinking ahead to your next new cell phone? If photos are a priority, you might be interested in the Samsung Memoir from T-Mobile.

The carrier got FCC approval for the new 8-mega pixel camera phone, which will be the first of its kind in the United States. All devices that use U.S. airwaves must receive a thumbs up from the FCC before shipping in this country.

Camera phone challenges include not just shooting at a resolution that won't bog down the rest of the phone's functioning, but also the difficulty of installing decent optics in a tiny device that has to be rugged enough to be tossed on the dashboard, dropped into a TSA bucket and manhandled by a toddler … who is likely the moving target you're trying to photograph.


The Samsung Memoir is thought to be T-Mobile's 8-megapixel
camera phone offering recently approved by the FCC.

Still, if the occasional stellar photo-for work or play-gets snapped by your phone, you'll likely want to print it. And for that image, the higher the resolution the better.

Putting an 8 megapixel cell phone through the paces will determine whether phones are approaching a quality that could someday replace digital cameras. Most bets are that's a long way off, but who ever thought we'd even be having the discussion?