I miss mobile phones with Xenon flashes

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Joined
25 Sep 2011
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446
Location
United Kingdom
I had a Sony Ericsson K750 (2005) and bought the official Xenon flash accessory, the MXE-60, for £6 (new) in January 2016.

It worked really well from my testing in nightclubs.

Just as good as stand-alone point-and-shoot camera Xenon flashes of the era.

Whilst I understand the reasons phone manufacturers don't build them into the phones these days, I wish such accessories would return for modern smartphones.

LEDs simply can't compete when taking moving night photos (such as in a club etc.)

For general knowledge, here is a list of phones with a built-in Xenon flash (up to mid-2020):

2005
  • Gigabyte g-Cam
2006
  • Sony Ericsson K790
  • Sony Ericsson K800
2007
  • Nokia N82
  • Samsung G800
  • Sony Ericsson K810
  • Sony Ericsson K850
2008
  • LG KC910 Renoir
  • Motorola ZN5
  • Nokia 6220 classic
  • Samsung G810
  • Sony Ericsson C905
2009
  • LG KC910i Renoir
  • Motorola XT701
  • Samsung M8910 Pixon12
  • Samsung T929 Memoir
  • Samsung W880 AMOLED 12M
  • Sharp 940SH
  • Sony Ericsson C901
  • Sony Ericsson C901 GreenHeart
  • Sony Ericsson Satio (Idou)
2010
  • HTC 7 Mozart
  • Motorola MILESTONE XT720
  • Motorola XT720 MOTOROI
  • Nokia N8
  • Spice S-1200
2012
  • Nokia 8080 PureView
2013
  • Nokia Lumia 928
  • Nokia Lumia 1020
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom
2014
  • Samsung Galaxy K zoom
 
Guessing the size, longevity and efficiency is just better on the LED for design purposes.

That and software has been catching up to a point where manufacturers deem it to be a necessity.
I genuinely think it's just a size thing.

Phones are too thin for a decent Xenon flash module, these days.
 
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