My cellphone has an LED...

I'm T&Eing the 2nd gen Verizon VX6800 (I think it is) for my office. The first gen was horrible!. Anyway, the new one has an LED situated adjacent to the camera lens on the back of the phone. I suppose it is to be used to augment natural light if needed for taking pictures. This thing is bright! Easily 10 lumens, perhaps more. More than enough to navigate around a dark room or to see in a dark car. Very floody. Think bare emitter with no lens/reflector.

Activating the light is a bit of a pain: Hit a button to take the phone out of sleep mode; hit the camera button; tap the light button on the screen. Not great, but handy if for some reason, you have left the house without a light.

Runtime is unknown. The battery is a lithium ion.

To me, this seems a handy feature to have on a phone. Most people carry phones everywhere. The only thing that would make this better as a light, would be if it was easier to actiivate.

The emitter apears very small in size. I have no idea of how to tell one from another though.

Almost all phones have had a LED(almost all are camera phones) in them for the last 2-3 years over here.

And I agree, it's a really nice touch, I don't edc a light since I rarely need light, and when I do, the phone LED is enough, I could even go by with only the light from the screen most of the time. But it's a real PITA to access the LED in the phone, eventhough I had set it as one of my shortcuts. So most of the time I don't bother using the LED, and most of the times, I'm fine anyway.

And cellphone batteries usually are around 900mah, so I would think that you could run that little LED a long time. Just waiting until a mobile manufacturer installs rebels or cree in their next lineup.

You couldn't believe the number of people using their phone backlight as flashlights..

A 'flash' that'll stay on is at least better than that.. I've never used one, but I've seen them. The cameras are the absolute lowest requirement on my list for a cell.

i used to have a sony ericsson k750 that had a led and it stayed on... since i got my n95 it doesnt have a light that stays on so i have my p3d q5

i have a sprint mogul. i use a 3rd party program that has 3 options, flashlight 30 seconds, flashlight 60 seconds and flashlight on. i have the flashlight 30 seconds set as a shortcut and it serves me very well. dont want to overheat with the permanent on function. bright enough for what i need it for