I agree that four years old is a long time. The difference is that with most other brands, they replace their old phones with new ones. You can be sure the Lg will have at least one good camera phone in 4 years, unless they out of business or given up on that line. But with i-mobile there doesn't really seem to be a replacement for the 902. If you look at their website http://www.i-mobilephone.com/ the best new phone has 3.2mp. It's possible the 902 was a failure for i-mobile and they're given up on this line but this would be a surprise to me. If anything, the 902 really helped to increase name recognition and their standing. True a replacement won't be as effective unless it's somehow really ground breaking but it seems to me it's a line worth keeping

Appears i-mobile finally have a replacement of sorts for 902. Specifically the i-mobile TV630. I haven't actually seen example photos from this phone, but with 8MP camera with autofocus (Casio-Hitachi sensor according to some sources), flash (not sure xenon or LED), and smile+face detection I'm guessing it's intended to be a replacement. And only ~5300 Baht according to some sources. Whether it is anywhere as good as the 902 of course remains to be seen.

Personally I find the K-touch C800 more interesting. (K-touch is a well known brand in China who made decent phones unlike the more generic cloners.) An 8MP phone, with Xenon flash, supposed ISO3200 CCD, and key thing is 3x optical zoom (which means has AF of course). Optics and I guess sensor are Taiwanese DC maker I believe either Altek or Premier. I've seen some sample photos and while I'm not an expert in digital cameras and I've also avoided comparing in too much depth since I don't think I can afford the C800 but from what I've seen it's a fairly decent camera. Price at launch was 2000+ Yuan which IMHO is definitely not worth it but from what I can tell from Chinese sites, price now posssibly as low as 900-100 Yuan (dunno for sure whether the sellers trustworthy or not altho seems quite a few around this price and I also saw someone talking about 900 Yuanbeing the price on for new ones on forum where some was selling 2nd hand it so I'm guessing is about right). Saw a seller on ebay offering for US$198 including shipping who I think are offering genuine phones.

At 900 Yuan that's cheaper then the i-mobile 630 :-P It does lack, tri band (dual only), dual sim and TV which the 630 has but still if you mostly care about the camera I think the K-touch is a better bet. (K-touch also has resistive touch screen BTW and handwritting recognition although thats quite common with Chinese phones.) Sadly as I've mentioned if you wanna get it outside China (well also sold in HK and Indonesia I think altho price maybe a little more) you're paying US$198 which isn't as good (although still not that bad). (Shipping probably ~US$20 so price for just phone US$178 i.e. ~1 216 yuan so 20%++ compared to Chinese price :-( )

Well that's just my 2 cents.

P.S. In case you're wondering, neither of these has 3G/UMTS

This post has been edited by Nil Einne: Aug 21 2009, 06:54 AM