I don’t understand the latest rage in cellphones. Cameras. I want my cellphone to place calls. I want my cellphone to place good quality calls. I want my cellphone to be durable. I want basic text messaging. Most of all I want my cellphone to be inexpensive.

I don’t want to surf the web. I don’t want to take pictures. I don’t want to view and modify email. I don’t want to play games on it. I don’t want downloadable ringtones that sound like the latest populare tune. I am not the target market.

You know what? That doesn’t bother me. The underlying story behind cameras with all the gizmos it the usage fees. Cell companies don’t mention how much it costs when advertising cameras these fancy phones. If SMS is $5 a month, how much are they going to charge for mailing pictures and movies over their network?

Even with a basic plan I pay more than I want to with my cellphone. Some day I am going to sit down and look at my usage of the cellphone, and maybe make the decision to go to prepaid. I can still get the features I want, but it might cost me less.

Why am I like this? Well, my cell phone is a communication device, not a PDA, and definitely not a camera. That is why I have a PDA, and a camera. I like having seperate devices. One reason I like the seperate devices is that I feel no fear throwing my cell into my pack when I go riding. If I had one of the PDA/cell/camera combo units that cost upwards of $650, I would never take it riding. It would lose its usefulness for me. My camera is small enough that I can carry it almost everywhere I go.

Besides, have you seen the quality of the pics a cameraphone can take? I haven’t seen any that don’t look grainy. I prefer good quality over bleeding edge. I don’t view it as a tragedy that I carry multiple devices with me.

Like I said, I am not the target market, even though I love gadgets, and I am a pretty techy person.