It seems so weird to me that after all these years, Pocket PC cameras are still pathetic. I went through 4 CF cameras, add-on things to use with CF slot-equipped PPCs. First the Casio version, a VGA resolution thing with horrid colour flaring, a penchant for chewing up batteries very, very quickly (typically taking a freshly charged battery down to 10% in about 15 to 20 minutes, where use without the camera gave me 3 or 4 hours of PPC time), and just really amazingly awful video performance (super-short clips, terrible quality, proprietary format which to this day cannot be transcoded with sound into any other by any known software). A freeware software to take still images worked 100% better, really quite impressive. Then came the HP version at the same 0.3Mp resolution. Better camera, and with some third-party software it actually worked rather well. Then the Pretec 1.3Mp, which was a hateful, awful, horrible, vile beast. Software was like a kiddy cartoon, and about as useful. Lastly the FlyCam 1.3Mp, best of them all, especially with software called CECam -
http://www.wincesoft.de/html/cecam.html - which enabled minimal-compression JPG capture (the manufacturer's software allowed 50% compression as their 'best' for truly awful pictures), but unfortunately no video. Video capture in the native software is a joke, with terrible whining noise in the audio and generally ugly quality.
Now I've got an O2 Atom with built-in 1.3Mp camera. Choppy video, 6fps at best and more often 3fps, really nasty still capture, an LED that either flares out the middle of close subjects or is too dim to be useful at greater than 3 feet away, and takes far too long to actually start up and to capture pictures so they usually end up late and blurry. Wonderfully un-useful.
So after all these years of PPC use, and frankly excessive willingness to part with cash in the slim hope of getting something usable as a camera, I have given up. Bought a Sanyo HD2 last year, then finding that I worried about the optics too much for general pocket use, sold that to a local through craigslist (for slightly less than I paid on eBay, new) and bought a waterproof/dustproof Sanyo. Awsome little camera. It goes with me everywhere, so it's always useful. Starts up fast, does excellent video, stills are plenty good enough for my use at 6Mp, zoom is great, and with a couple of spare batteries, tiny things, it's good for days and days of normal use. I'm happy... just really wish it could have been a PPC solution instead, to save on pockets. Carrying around one single device is preferable, and if I could have a waterproof Pocket PC phone with a great 5Mp camera and flash, even if it meant a bit of a bulky size compared to the average PPC, I'd be all over that. A shame no one in manufacturerland listens though, 'cause I'm betting that millions of users would feel the same. Heck, cram in radio and TV and GPS too, to appeal to even more users. There'll still be lots of ultra-slim models for those who want that, but for the actual power users amongst us, and for people like me who don't want to carry 4 or 5 devices around all the time, such a device would be perfect.
And I kinda thought maybe the Omnia came close, mostly. Then the other day I saw a side-by-side picture of the Omnia with an iPhone....... oh. my. goodness. The Omnia's screen is PATHETIC! Washed out, blue-tinged, hard to see even in artificial light so of course it's only getting worse in sun. The iPhone screen looked, as they always do, crisp and beautiful. A client of mine has one, showed it to me recently in the shop. I was amazed. That's what a screen should look like, on any multi-media device. So the wait goes on... and of course I don't expect water nor dust resistance any time soon, except on the odd ugly Motorola. As for camera quality, dream on. PPC makers just aren't interested yet.