Kodak and Motorola Team up for Motozine ZN5

The joint effort of both companies has produced a cell phone with a 5-megapixel image sensor for more serious photographic endeavors.

If the shoddy VGA camera tacked to the back of your cell phone has fallen short for snapping photos of anything other than bumper stickers and bar crawls, Kodak and Motorola have heard your siren call. On Sunday, the two companies announced the Motozine ZN5, a cell phone with legit camera capabilities rivaling those of a dedicated point-and-shoot cam.

In back, the candybar-shaped ZN5 gets a 5-megapixel sensor that fires up by sliding away the lens cover. It focuses automatically and includes a Xenon flash, optimized settings for low-light conditions, and room for up to 4GB worth of pictures with an optional memory card. It even offers advanced shooting modes, like multi-shot and panorama, which will stitch together a series of horizon-level photos into one seamless image.

After shooting, users can review pictures with the click of one button, then upload them to a Kodak Gallery, or social-networking site with ShoZu. Pictures can also be transferred to a computer or printer via a USB cable, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

On the phone end, the ZN5 gets a full HTML browser to take advantage of its EDGE and Wi-Fi data capabilities, along with Motorola’s ModeShift to instantly swap the numeric keypad for one more suited for texting.

Although both companies are rooted in the United States, China will actually be the first country to get the ZN5 when it shows up there in July.  The companies expect the worldwide rollout to occur by the end of 2008, but prices and more exact availability dates haven’t been announced.