Samsung 12MP Digital Camera 5X Optical 3X Zoom In LCD Red
Samsung 12MP Digital Camera 5X Optical 3X In LCD Red
Samsung proudly introduces a new milestone in digital camera technology! The 12.2 Megapixel Dual LCD Digital Camera with a 1.5″ front LCD screen, a revolutionary feature in the industry, lets you take part in capturing the moment like never before.
The Samsung Dual LCD Digital Camera lets you see every scene in a completely new and exciting way. Just use the front LCD screen, and set up the perfect shot with you in it, time after time. A host of top-ranked features and technologies, from the lens to the user interface, turns this camera into a true must-have. And the small, handheld size makes it easy to take it with you everywhere you go.
The Schneider lens optics with 4.6x Zoom lets you get up close on almost any subject 27mm Wide Angle lens captures even more of the moment Countdown timer – Use it to coordinate any shot perfectly Child mode – Keep small children’s attention, with a built-in animation Front and Back LCD Screens – Get out from behind the camera and get in the shot Perfectly framing yourself is quick and easy Never miss being in a once-in-a-lifetime moment Rear Touch Screen LCD – Scroll quickly through all menus Easily access your photo library Haptic vibration response registers your choices Gesture UI is a revolutionary new way to view and sort through menus and options Smart Auto – Automatically senses picture conditions, and adjusts for the perfect shot Optimizes shot regardless of poor lighting 14 different preset modes, for a variety of settings Parameters can also be bypassed for manual control
Samsung 12MP Dig Camera 5X Opt 3 In LCD Red Review
PROS
Menu system is fast. For a touchscreen i find it to be more than adequate. Response times don’t keep you waiting.
Very “iphone-ish” in the sense that its touch and has features like multi-delete (select as many pictures as you want to delta in one fatal swoop instead of deleting a single image at a time), accelerometer for browsing pictures and tap to focus, which is sweet.
Sweet continuous shoot mode. Seems to capture fractions of a second at a time.
HD Video is very nice. You can trim video on the device itself and select a frame from the video to save as a photo.
Form factor is great. Not the smallest, but the size seems to fit the quality.
5x Optical Zoom is a treat for a point and shoot.
Fast boot to picture: It takes less than 3 seconds to power on the camera and snap your first photo.
I like that it has distinctly different audible beeps for 1) a positive auto focus lock and 2) when its not able to autolock the focus on your subject. Even the front LCD displays a “red Reticle” for bad focus and a “green reticule” for perfect focus when doing self portraits.
Smart Modes: In my low lit living room, the camera auto-detected that there was not adequate light and adjusted itself for the environment. The result, a nice picture with lightened features with no dark spots.
Slide show mode: You can select exactly what pictures you want to play. You don’t have to sit through all photos, including the bad ones. It has about 5 different preset audio tracks to play while watching the slide show. Nice touch.
Image Stabilization works in both photo mode and video mode.
Can record video without an audio track if no audio is needed.
CONS:
Front LCD Screen does not turn on when shooting in video
Micro SD a pain to deal with (adapters etc)
When shooting video, when you zoom in or out, the audio cuts out while the lens is in motion. Once the lens stops moving, the audio kicks in again. very odd.
When importing into iPhoto on Snow Leopard, the videos do not have thumbnails or video preview. They appear as black squares in the photo album until played.
You have the ability to attach audio snippets to your pictures while they are in the camera. However, once you import all pictures, the wav file is separated from the picture and it becomes an orphaned file. IT doesn’t stay embedded in the picture or data file. So you end up with an SD card full of wav files in your card unless you delete them.
MINOR GRIPES
Battery door seems flimsy. Since this is where the MicroSD card is I’m a bit nervous it may break in the coming months.
Move the clown image for small kids to a more intuitive location in the software (like with the other front LCD settings).
The camera does a nice job at recognizing faces then waiting for them to smile before taking a picture. Problem is that once you sync the pictures to your computer and empty the SD card to make room for the next round of photos, the face recognition goes away and you have to reset those faces you previously detected again. It memorizes up to 20 faces, but they don’t stay in the camera permanently. That is unless, you leave the pictures on the camera after syncing them to your laptop.
Only place i noticed some lag was in picture review (scrolling side to side to view pictures).
No mac software included. Only Windows.
Display brightness setting only affects rear LCD, not front facing LCD.
Not intuitive how to set your own start up image when the camera powers on. I found the option but it’s not as intuitive as the other menus and I have yet to figure it out.
The camera is HD. Why not include an HD cable to connect to ones TV
MAJOR GRIPE
Speaking of TVs, this morning I hooked up the Samsung TL220 to my TV to play some video that I shot. Boy was that a mistake. Two concerns: One is that when connected to the TV the screen on the camera goes blank. Instead you navigate by looking at the TV where a small mouse cursor appears. This takes some getting used to. Two (and the largest issue here) is that it kills battery life. The camera charged over night, and by 11am (after shooting some baby videos and outputting them to the TV) the battery just died. You get a nice message saying battery is low, and then it shuts off. So, caution when connecting camera to a TV. It burns the battery at both ends!
What I WOULD ADD IN THE NEXT VERSION
SD Card instead of MicroSD (eliminate need for adapters)
Metal case for durability
GPS tagging
BlueTooth transfer
Front video screen enabled when shooting video
IN SUMMARY
Nice camera. I opted for the $299 job which has smaller pixel density on the rear LCD and is 3″ instead of 3.5″. In my opinion, the extra $50 is a nice option, but the innards are all the same. Plus, i like the ergo-grip that the extra space on the back of the camera offers when you opt for the 3″ screen. It inspires confidence that the total stranger i ask to snap my picture wont drop the camera.
4 out of 5 stars.
Well thought out device.
Highly recommended.
