Would you like to have a cameraphone that doesn’t make compromises when it comes to camera-related features, image quality and functionality as a smartphone? The folks from Black Design Associates would like that too, so they created a concept that essentially turns an iPhone 4 case into a full-fledged camera.

Place the iPhone inside the “case”, and you get a ready-to-shoot camera, with internal flash memory, a 12.1 megapixel sensor and 8x optical zoom. On the back side, you control it through the iPhone’s 3.5-inch retina display, which doesn’t at all sound like a bad way to operate a camera. Of course, the iPhone also brings some additional perks, such as the ability to quickly compress photos and videos and share them on your favorite social network.

The concept (which is nowhere near production stage, as far as we can tell) leaves many questions unanswered: how practical would it be to carry the Leica camera-case around, and what are the benefits of such an idea over having a standard camera that can connect to the iPhone. Still, for those of us that dream of phones and high-end cameras some day merging into one, it’s an interesting proposition.



Via [Engadget]