In 1999 for the Japanese market is the world's first mobile phone with integrated digital camera, the Toshiba Camesse with the operating system, GEOS-SC. The Camesse was in Japan, quickly became a cult device and had several successors. In Japan there are several Internet services to the private Camesse-loaded and photos can be published. When the photos were Camesse directly in the phone with an image editing software.

Since 2002, more and more mobile phones with integrated camera. These camera phones are the most image capture devices on the back of the phone.

The photographic quality of the first camera phones were initially very weak. Since mid 2004, however, some models can even keep up with simple digital cameras. In Germany, the Sharp GX 30 The first photo phone with a 1-megapixel camera. The Siemens S65 was the first time with a 1.3-megapixel camera with a resolution of 1280 × 960 image points. Especially in light surroundings sufficiently good images can be made. In darkness, the images show, however, a strong color, because usually a built-in flash is missing (only as ansteckbares optional).

The first phone with a built-in flash, the Sony Ericsson K800. Sony Ericsson mobile phone that has a range of mobile phones with built-in flash was released. This series, called Cyber-shot, is composed of several mobile phones, especially for their special features and photo cameras with higher resolutions (more than 3.2 megapixels) are known. But even with these features, you can picture these phones still do not compare with digital cameras.

With the integrated cameras can usually also be video. Their quality is, however, compared with camcorder recordings, usually much worse.

The photographed images are stored in the mobile phone and can be given support by means of multimedia messages (MMS), email, infrared, Bluetooth or USB cable to another phone or a PC will be sent.

At CeBIT 2005 the Samsung SCH-V770's first 7-megapixel cellphone presented. It has wide-angle and telephoto lens, a built in triple optical zoom (7.8 mm to 23.4 mm focal length). Sharpness level and shutter speed (from 15 s to 1/2.000 s) can be set manually. The seven million pixels can be found on a 1 / 1, 8 "CCD Square. The front looks like a cell phone, while the back of most digital camera functions houses.

In Asia, mobile phones with integrated cameras have long been widespread. In the year 2004 were already sold 87% of all mobile phones equipped with a camera [4]. Cell phone cameras also make it possible to printed products to read QR codes, which in Japan as a mobile Internet links, for example, to participate in gambling activities are popular.

Increasingly, however, larger companies prohibit their employees, mobile phones with camera function on the factory premises to bring. These are in the field of industrial espionage, a safety risk