Today Samsung and T-Mobile officially announced the Samsung SGH-T929 Memoir 3G camera phone, the first 8-megapixel camera phone available through a US wireless carrier. The most attractive feature of the handset is its camera capabilities, which is the highest pixel count of any U.S. phone.

The 8 megapixel camera has 16x digital zoom but no optical zoom, 5 different shooting modes and video recording. The phone will come with a 1 gigabyte card and can handle a 16 GB card though it has also not provided the onboard memory capacity.

The will also feature a full HTML browser with virtual QWERTY keyboard, users can also take advantage of the built-in GPS to geo-tag photos.

The companies did not announce a price and an exact launch date, but the Memoir should be available before the end of the first quarter, rumors also say that Memoir will be around $299 bucks with a two year contract.

Samsung Memoir's key features are:

- 8 Megapixel Camera with Xenon flash and 16X digital zoom

- microSD slot for storage capacity expansion

- A-GPS for navigation and location based services

- 240 x 400 pixels touch screen display (262k TFT)

- Full HTML browser and POP3 e-mail support

- TouchWiz interface with customizable widgets

- 3G/EDGE/GPRS data access speeds compatible

- Wireless Bluetooth 2.0 technology (Stereo)

This is the camera phone that will make people want to leave their digital camera at home. When you combine the Memoir's imaging capabilities, customizable menus and music player, not only is it a great phone, but the entertainment possibilities are unlimited, Chief Marketing Officer for Samsung Mobile Bill Ogle said.

The phone maximum talk time is about 8 hours and standby time is up to 9 days it measures 106 x 54 x 14mm and the Memoir weighs in at 125 grams.

Samsung