Samsung Galaxy Camera - White (16MP, 21x Optical Zoom, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS) 4.8 inch HD Touch LCD

Never have I been as pleased with a digital camera as with this fascinating Samsung Galaxy Camera. Top of my list is the big screen which is so wonderfully wide it occupies the entire back of the camera. Its size has even pushed any physical buttons and knobs off into the software and therefore onto the screen itself! And what a screen it is. I will just pick out one terrific feature from it, the tricky sounding 'Smart Pro Mode'. Whoever invented this is a genius. It nearly presses the button for you and yes, 'we really do the rest' as Mr. Kodak once said.You will have complete strangers looking over your shoulder, in no time, at that big screen, to see the photos you have just taken. As an aside, the screen ensures anybody using the camera will not be inclined to cut people off at the knees by having too much sky in the photo, the 'too much headroom' syndrome. Your compositions will be Rembrandt like.As to picture quality, Everything so far has been razor sharp from postcard size to A4 enlangements. This is despite pixel-counting reviewers who also must pick nits. Intriguingly there may be a reason for this. I decided to install a battery and micro SD memory card only, for the moment. No SIM card because I don't yet need to avail of all the apps and sharing love-in hippy stuff that goes with that. I mean to say, it is a camera is it not? I have been told that since there is less demand from the Android, not to mention the Jellybean (what is this? Snoopy meets Dr. Seuss via ET?) that all the power goes to the picture making elements and even the anti-vibration device. It makes sense.Buy one soon, if you can, at Amazon's great price, before Samsung either delete or improve it!Tim, Dublin.

Only had a couple of hours to dabble with this little beauty and I'm already impressed. It can do so much more than advertised. If you search 'youtube' deep enough you will find several tutorials that go in depth on how to use the camera and exactly what it's capable of such as viewing a pictures details using the 'tilt' of the camera instead of zooming in all the time!. Picture quality is very good on all modes I have tried so far. Slow motion of the sparrows on the bird table are a delight to behold. Voice recognition/control is literally faultless - tried to catch it out first time of use with "isometric workings of an equilateral triangle" and it got it word for word! wow!! Indoors with low lighting it took pictures like I was sitting in daylight, never had a camera that did that. I'm already using DropBox so don't have to go through the hassle of sitting in front of my PC to download pictures. I'm off on a two week cruise to the Caribbean soon so will extend this review on how it performed when I return. it's actually what I bought the camera for.........Footnote: Just downloaded some pics manually to iPhoto (MAC) no problem...... but there IS a problem downloading video! investigated on several forums and apparently Samsung/Apple have issues with Mp4 video format and have this problem on a multitude of Samsung devices for at least TWO YEARS!!!!!. So... if you have a MAC and are using iPhoto and are expecting to download videos from the camera think again ? co's it ain't going to happen (shock, horror!).Footnote 2: Found a long winded way to do it.... put micro SD card in an adapter, put the adapter in a usb sandisk reader, put it into a USB port, open it, drag each MP4 file into iPhoto.....

First impression is a quite fantastic device having 3G, WiFi and GPS. I go to loads of gigs and have 3 million hits on YouTube so there is much potential here, particularly with the 21x optical zoom lens. Live tweeting close up quality photos is very satisfying for both me and my followers. If ever EE have the decency to deliver my 4G mobile wifi unit ordered 22 days ago then I may even upload videos immediately after recording.The still picture quality is exceptional in broad daylight, in darkened environments where a flash is not appropriate no better than my Canon G12. The video quality so far has been promising. It's a little soft for a 1080p device but the two gigs I have made videos at were in a dark church in Hackney. Somewhere with a full-on lightshow may prove sharper. Like every other camera I have had it runs into problems standing down the front right by the speakers, things get a bit muffled and distorted. The auto-focus is rather slow to respond when zooming in and out leaving 3-4 seconds out of focus at times, again this should improve outdoors in daylight.The Android functionality is only hampered by the Samsung customisation. I expect it for the camera hardware and the menus are very easy to use other than an apparent lack of recording volume options leading to sound distortion as above. It's just a shame they can't leave well alone in other areas.Anything I can do on my other devices I can do on this. I ignore DropBox and use Google+ Instant Upload instead. It's just a shame I can't remove DropBox completely. Facebook still bombs out when trying to share directly from the gallery as it does on my Nexus 4.1 phone.However...Battery life is very short. 3 hours at a gig taking 2-3 videos and 20-30 photos sees the battery down by 50% despite being on power saving. This may be down to Instant Upload struggling to get a 3G signal but I shouldn't have to switch off that functionality to see if there's a difference. 5 days at Glastonbury next year might require 5 batteries unless I switch off 3G completely.The fatal flaw leading to this particular item's return and replacement with another is the video zoom. When initially zooming forward there is no problem. But zooming backwards and subsequent zooming in either direction leads to an extremely loud crackle in the video recording. Hopefully this is just a one off with my unit and wouldn't stop me from recommending it.##UPDATE##Having had the replacement which came in blue rather than the advertised black a couple of points.Our office Christmas Party was in a very dark night club in London. In these settings taking shots with the flash is pretty random as you don't get the green squares around faces very often leading to lack of focus and red-eye reduction simply doesn't work.I went to the XFM Winter Wonderland and had my first occasion to test out the video on the new one with high volumes blasting out of the speakers. Unfortunately the previous issue with crackling/distortion when using zoom is still very much present. It also takes quite a while to regain the auto-focus when zooming quickly. I may just have to live with the crackling or simply use the zoom a lot less. In so many other ways it is a brilliant camera with no apparent rival on the market, very reluctant to return again.##UPDATE##Very impressed with Samsung via their Contact CEO facility. I had a very helpful reply from their head of customer services when I said it seemed a bit pointless to return the camera a second time only to discover the very same issue a 3rd time. He contacted their technical guys and came back with a request to try the latest software update, Android 4.1.2. I had already applied this but hadn't had a chance to test it out. I did note, however, this also contained a firmware update. Not having any gigs for a few weeks I put my Led Zeppelin DVD on and progressively turned up the volume to the point my receiver safety cut-out kicked in, zooming in and out all the while. Result, zero crackle. A minor amount of motor noise when no volume but this will not affect me. There wasn't even any high volume distortion and the levels were similar to front row Brixton Academy. Hoping this holds true at a real gig but looking great so far.