Bro, you make one fatal assumption in your statement. For a technogeek, you sure don't know too much about camera phones. On darn near 100% (if not 100%) of all camera phones, THERE IS NO DYNAMIC IRIS! The irises on these camera phones are locked down. Shoot, we'll even go back a few posts: What the heck is a "virtual iris"? The fact that the image gets darker in dark spots and blooms in light spots (like focused on the ceiling fan) is because 1) Not enough light is reaching the sensor so its black. What you perceive as it going darker is the residual stimulus to the sensor from going back from the light. 2) When focused on the light, it blooms, because of the pixel density on the camera sensor, other pixels get "stimulated" and wash out. C'mon man. You said you're a camera/techno geek. Get with it.
I don't downplay the limitations of the camera phone. It's quite limited. But I also don't hold it against the phone. Because in OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, the phone excels. The DROID DOES take flash photography. The DROID does take excellent videos, in well-lit rooms. But at the end of the day, it's a camera phone. There are natural physical and software limitations. But unless you want a phone that has a camera sensor 200% larger and 100% thicker to accomodate focusing and a mechanical iris... you gotta take it for what it's worth.
The Eris chose a different fixed iris dimension to deal with not having a flash, just like the iPhone did. That Iris coupled with product-specific software to handle the physical specifications of the camera allow it to take, in this case, low-light videos.
Let me ask you this: Since you're a camera/techno geek and since camera phones necessitate a fixed iris (likely very small) due to physical limitations of the housing, DOF requirements, 5MP sensor, tell me what the output would be considering this camera would be required to take flash photography? How would you set up a camera phone knowing those physical limitations?
Second, tell me what the output would be if you opened up that iris to a larger dimension, maybe sacrifice some DOF, still have a densely packed 5 MP sensor, meant to be set up for non-flash, and decided to take a flash photo with that camera... what would the output be? Also consider the fact that the flash is literally, millimeters away from the lens itself (wouldn't want you to take your Eris and couple it with one of your $1000 camera flashes and post it up on Youtube)?
My point is again: Certain decisions needed to be made about the device based on what it was offering. No doubt, if the DROID didn't take flash photography, it would be set up differently. But since it's touting a 2 blindingly bright LED flash nearly millimeters away from its lense, certain compromises had to be made about the physical set up of the camera for it to perform well when those KINDS of photos are taken. Perhaps, what should have happened is that Motorola would have put an option to fire the flash constantly for low-light videos. But then you get a bunch of pissed off DROID owners whose LED flash burns out because of over use.
