Enterprise Mobility: Sony Bloggie Touch, Flip HD Hold Dedicated-Device Line vs. Smartphones

Sony and Cisco continue to update their respective Bloggie and Flip lines of ultra-portable camera devices-in spite of the growing popularity of smartphones and portable media players with camera modules and robust imaging software. Despite the latter's rise, dedicated cameras such as Bloggie and Flip offer some distinct advantages for shutterbugs. First, there's ease of use: One button turns these devices on, one big button records, and a USB port uploads images and video to your PC and Mac.Second, many dedicated devices on the market shoot images and video at high resolution. For example, the Bloggie Touch can shoot video in 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, along with 12.8-megapixel still images. The Flip Ultra HD boasts 1,280-by-720 resolution, along with a slimmer body than previous iterations. But with smartphones adding new visual software and more powerful camera modules on a quarter-by-quarter basis, will dedicated cameras such as the Bloggie and Flip eventually find themselves shunted to the dustbin of dead tech? That's a question the marketplace will decide.