Casio’s brand new, on-the-shelves-of-shops-in-Japan-as-of-today W53CA handset is quite well endowed. It has a 5.1-megapixel camera (yeah, we’re not sure why the .1 was included, either) and it’s powered by a software solution called EXILIM for Mobile, which equips the phone with rather tidy photo editing ability.
EXILIM also ensures — by way of compensating for any movement of the handset as a photo is taken — that these bigger-than-necessary 5.1-megapixel shots don’t end up blurred or botched. Which should remove one of the main frustrations of mobile snapping. Appropriately, the W53CA has a decent screen (running at the superb resolution of 480 x 800 pixels) on which you can view your photos before pinging them to your Mac/ PC. Say “cheese!”
Hi all. I’ve got the new W53CA (I live in Tokyo). Its an OK unit but…
There isn’t any English manuals to go with it, and probably never will be. The unit is too complex to figure out all of its features without it, so you’re going to need a friend that can read Japanese to help you.
I does not play mp3 audio files! Only kmf format (ugh!), and you have to use their (au) Lismo Music Port software to load the music files into the unit (again, only Japanese Win XP OS can be used for this).
It has no extrnal display.
Its e-mail client is a little funky when entering in ABC mode.
It uses the “Micro†SD card, which is still a little pricy. Its good for storing pictures though.
I haven’t figured out how to use the dictionary yet (its all in Japanese).
The internet browser is a wasted feature on a cell phone (IMHO).
It takes good pictures! It even has a neat little LED flash!!!
Hi there, thanks for the write-up. We’re not surprised to hear the W53CA is so closely-tied to the Japanese market (it was never intended for release elsewhere). How are you finding the picture quality in low-light? We’d be interested to hear how the picture quality compares to a standalone digital camera, generally speaking.
I also have this phone.
I can’t completely agree with Dee the Man. It sounds like this is your first japanese phone?
It does come with an English quickstart guide.
Plus, the unit is bilingual. Pressing a guide button in many cases will give you an explanation of how to use a particular section.
Of course it does not readily play mp3 files! This is a japanese phone. They want you to use their chaka uta (all carriers) and lismo services (au). This is normal. You have to find an appli to handle it.
It has not external display. I dislike this point too.
But you know what you are getting when you buy the phone.
Lismo is kinda annoying, but it can’t be helped.
The email client is EASY TO USE.
The email client is nearly identical to every other AU phone in the last few years.
Perhaps, you are not using your phone in English mode.
Of course, predictive input is only available in Japanese, but you could always add an english dictionary instead for the predictive engine.
The English-Japanese dictionary is EASY TO USE.
But it’s hard to understand since it’s the popular genius dictionary.
Almost every electronic english-japanese dictionary uses genius.
It is not intended for English speaker, but for Japanese speakers to help when they use english.
MicroSD cards are standard across ALL mobile phones.
Prices have dropped a lot in the last few years. You can buy them cheap in DenDenTown (Osaka) or Akihabara (Tokyo)
The Internet Browser is extremely useful. But this is something particular to the Japanese market. You shouldn’t be expecting the same experience as on a non-mobile device.
If you don’t have a data plan, then web browsing is a little expensive.
The PC Site Viewer is grossly expensive, so obviously don’t use that.
However, the regular browser is still very useful for getting information, weather, news, train routing, navigation, television, sports, etc… information.
The unit is feature rich (except for the lack of a radio, digital (oneseg) television tuner, and a subdisplay) and it’s focus is to boast Casio’s mobile exilim engine.
It features all the regular features like GPS navigation walking style or driving style, Electronic Payment through a contactless RF IC chip, camera, music services, games, QR 2D bar code maker/reader, downloadable video clip support, pushed news headlines, pushed weather updates, savable maps for navigation (an improvement over previous versions), shopping services, electronic books, etc…
But their exilim mobile engine and camera is pretty good.
5.15Mpx, 9 point auto focus, intelligent engine for different shooting conditions, and the ability to inject GPS data into your photos.
However, the image quality is not as high as their regular camera… But it’s certainly good enough to cover the various casual and candid situations.
does anybody know how i can buy this cell phone online bacause i live in the united states