You won't find a camera phone as capable as a digital camera. However, some can take good casual snapshots. This is ideal, because you probably always have your cell phone handy.

Camera-phone pictures look good on a small screen. But if you want to do more than share the photos, you need more power. You need a 1-megapixel camera to save photos on your computer. If you want to print them, go for 2 megapixels.

You may also be able to change the image quality. Look through the phone's menus. It probably won't be set to take the best quality pictures by default. Higher quality pictures eat up memory.

Nowadays, many camera phones can also capture video. Your phone won't compare to a camcorder. But you can get decent video from some models. Look at frames-per-second (fps) and size. Insist on 15 fps, and a size of 352-by-288 pixels.

Most camera phones take dark pictures. So look for a flash. Phone flashes are weak, reaching only a few feet.

Many camera phones tout their zooms. Don't let this fool you. You won't see many optical zooms. Rather, phones use digital zoom. This is just a software trick and produces degraded images.