Why the Bold 9900 really doesn't have autofocus
The Bold 9900/9930 does not have an autofocus camera. 95% of the time, this is no big deal and the camera is actually good.....ANYWAYS....The Bold is a spare-no-expense type of phone. It was designed to be premium.
Here is my reasoning as to why the Bold doesn't have an autofocus camera.
RIM messed up on the internal design of the phone (as a fanboy is pains me to say this). I believe RIM intended to put autofocus in this badboy. The added expense of having an autofocus camera is fairly minor. They have millions of these components anyway. If Apple can buy an autofocus camera to fit into 9.3 mm, then RIM could easily too.
So why not?
The issue lies in the placement of the camera. Apple put it in the top corner of the phone, far away the the LCD. If you look closely at the Bold 9900/9930, the camera is located close to the top edge of the LCD on the other side. I think it was just close enough that it forced RIM to use a non-autofocus camera(which require less space). I don't think they saw this coming and it was going to be way too difficult to try to get those autofocus cameras in there as it would cause other issues.
If you don't own a Bold, spin the image of the Bold around on RIM's site and see if you agree with me:
BlackBerry - BlackBerry Bold Phones - Compare BlackBerry Bold Phones - Bold Smartphones - CA
RIM did not have time or want to spend the money to order more autofocus cameras that were smaller and had the right specifications. I think RIM did the right thing here in the situation. They could not just redo the Bold 9900 housing, that would be ridiculous as it cost them lots of time and money (and plus, it's super sexy). If RIM wanted to save money by removing autofocus, they would have removed it on the Torch.
You can argue that RIM could have put an autofocus camera in the Playbook as they had lots of room and its only 10mm thick. And you're right. But I believe RIM ordered soooo many 5mp edof cameras without autofocus that were for the curve originally that it just made sense to use them as it 1) saved some money, 2) autofocus isn't that necessary on a tablet, 3) they had tons of stock of edof cameras and 4) Device fabrication is easier
If you disagree, awesome! The more opinions the better. What are your thoughts? Thanks.