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Great piece of kit - Full marks for Samsung, December 27, 2005
Reviewer: MF
I chose this camera over the Canon Ixus range, the Sony cybershots, the
Nikon S1 and S3, the Fuji Z1 and the Olympus range.
Reason - Saw most of the cameras in various shops (all great pieces of
electronics) however the samsung was well priced and had one or two
slightly better features in the price range and above.
Size - Perfect (small)
Build - Solid, robust
Picture quality - Very good
Video - 30fps. Awesome, I thought I wouldn't use it but it is very handy.
Quality looks great.
Useability - Very good, I have fat fingers from sports yet still find the
buttons and keypad easy to navigate.
LCD - Large, about 230,000 pixels. Twice the resolution of the other
cameras (see for yourself). The screen looks great and the refresh rate is
fast so the sceen appears smooth when you move it. Compared to the fuji
Z1, though very nice and well price, there is a noticable lag in the
Fuji's screen.
conclusion
The camera feels sturdy in your hand, and starts up very quickly for quick
shots. It's given me great shots so far at parties, social events and
everyday life and has a large selection of modes and features if you ever
wanted to use them. Personally auto works well for me since all I want to
do is take great pictures easily and quickly...but isn't that the point of
compact cameras!? I feel 'average' people are getting too technical and
moving away from the primary purpose of a camera!
In one sentence:
A great camera in all aspects, will not disappoint.
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Great Camera Great Price, November 9, 2005
Reviewer: J. Ryoo "jake1260" (
Right off the bat you know you've got a good deal when you open to box to
find:
1. A nice carrying case that fits the camera perfectly.
2. A cradle that can be used optionally, the USB and Power cable can each
independently be attached to the camera! Great for traveling around, leave
the cradle behind.
3. A WHOPPING 50 MB of internal storage, W O W!!!!!!!!!! When your memory
card runs out you still get a decent amount of pictures before having to
put in a new card.
4. Software that acts as a OCR scanner to transfer text pictures into text
documents, great for research, students, or when you just want to email
someone a newpaper/magazine article.
My last camera was the Canon SD300 and I decided to upgrade to this camera
for it's higher mega pixel, bigger LCD, better video recording, and
internal zooming lens.
Design:
Easier to use and more intuitive than the Canon interface. Why? Well there
is a round menu pad that your thumb rests on in the back to control
various functions like flash, timer, etc. But there is another column of
buttons to the immediate left that controls 1. Playback 2. Switching
between video/camera mode 3. Deleting a picture. It's very fast and easy
to go into playback mode or switch betwen video and camera mode. Just
press the button with your thumb without even looking at the camera!
My old Canon you had to move a slider switch which took the camera out of
shooting mode. And to switch to video mode it was the center position of
the slide switch so you had to always look and double check the slider was
in the middle. The older Canons had a rotating switch which was even
worse, because they had like 8 different functions on them and you really
make to make sure you put it in the right mode. In my opinion that's
terrible, this is a point and shoot camera, the design of the user
interface should allow the user to quickly snap pictures, put the camera
in different modes without having to double check all the time. With the
Samsung i5, you can switch modes review pictures in a completely dark room
since you know where all the buttons are, AWESOME, A++ for DESIGN. Oh, and
the delete picture gets it's own button, no confusion or error when
deleting a picture. My old canon had it on the round menu pad, sometimes I
didn't press it correctly and I invoked another function by mistake. Glad
I don't have to deal with that anymore.
Picture quality:
First I think the Canon SD300 may have a slight edge. In low light
settings the colors seem a bit more natural. But I think the Canons in
general have the best image quality. If they are a 10 then this would be a
9. So, I would rate this Samsung as very good. Both Samsung and Canon seem
to put the default settings of their cameras to have the images soft.
Nikon seems to go the other route and sets their defaults to sharp. I
prefer sharp so I set my camera to sharp and it's great. I love it and I
have no problems with the image quality of this camera. The safety flash
is a good idea but the images look a little grainy, I still prefer the old
way to hold the camera real still and take pictures without flash indoors.
Real Life Performance:
This is where theory meets reality. And this is where this camera shines.
1. Ok, internal zooming lens, so what? I'll tell you. The idea behind
point and shoot cameras are that you take them everywhere, in your pocket.
You have it so you can quickly snap a picture of events that unfold in
your life like the fish that got away, your child taking his/her first
steps, or even an alien abduction in progress. Since the lens is internal
you can keep the camera on and ready to snap pictures and still put it
away in your pocket. You can't do that with most other camers since they
have that darn lens sticking out!
2. 50 MB internal memory. Chances are if the moment that you're taking
pictures of is really critical that's when you'll run out of memory space
on your card. So instead of fumbling around like a fool with other cameras
you can keep taking pictures with this one knowing you've got 50MB of
storage in reserve.
3. Again, design and layout of the camera is great for fast switching of
modes and reviewing pictures on the go. I like that I can concentrate on
taking the picture instead of being preoccupied with looking down at my
camera wondering what mode it's in etc.
Overall impressions:
I'm very happy with my purchase, I use the video recording function all
the time. You definetly have to buy a spare battery because you will take
video. I bought 2 off brand batteries, they were dirt cheap, but not as
good as the OEMS, but did I mention they were dirt cheap! The spare
battery fits perfectly in the belt loop of the provided case. Good luck
with your camera purchase!
Back to Samsung Digimax i5 5MP
(SILVER)
Back to Samsung Digimax i5
5MP (BLACK)
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