It’s the novelty factor, that sells mobile phones these days, I’m telling you. Remember when having a camera was the coolest thing on the block? Well, the new W41SA handset from Sanyo allows you to take a picture of any text, and it will automatically block out everything else. This text-only snapshot can then be overlaid onto another photo and the color of the scanned text can be changed.

Think of it as an incredibly simple – as in essentially one function only – version of PhotoShop for your cell phone. The slim W41SA doesn’t come up short on the rest of the features, either. Of course, there’s a digital camera on-board: a 1.3 megapixel. The 2.3-inch QVGA LCD display is fairly standard, but this phone does pack EV-DO. Other features include FM radio, stereo speakers, 50MB internal memory, miniSD expansion, and TV remote functionality.

Unfortunately for us in North America, it doesn’t seem like the Sanyo handwriting-scanning W41SA is heading our way anytime soon. This CDMA phone is available now through KDDI in Japan.