By Sean Captain – Samsung introduced two radical new cameras today with nary a word about traditional specs, such as megapixels and zoom lenses. Instead, the story was about features that make it easier to take and share pictures.
“In the age of connected lifestyle, a company cannot get by with selling a box that simply takes pictures,” said the company’s U.S. co-president, Tim Baxter, before showing off the new models.
Self Portraits
First up was the Samsung TL225 “Dual View”camera, which sports a 1.5-inch LCD on the front so that you can frame self-portrait photos. (And the zoom lens that starts at a wide 27mm will allow you to get a few friends in the picture, too.) The screen also displays a “3-2-1” countdown when you use the timer function, and it even shows animations to capture the attention or babies so they will look at the camera.
Using the screen works pretty well — certainly better than the old method of aiming blindly and hoping for the best. The resolution is plenty for simply making sure that the images is framed properly.
And both the shutter and side-to-side zoom lever are as easy to reach from the front as from the back. Though it’s hard to hold the camera steady with just one hand, as Samsung shows off in a commercial they previewed at the press conference. You’ll probably end up using two hands.
The screen on the back is truly impressive, too — a 3.5-inch, 1.5-megapixel behemoth. With a relatively responsive touchscreen, the LCD reads both presses of its virtual buttons and gestures; such as swiping to scroll through photos and tracing an “X” to delete them, and it acknowledges your input via a “haptic feedback” vibration. Gesture recognition was a little wonky in my trials, but Samsung cautioned that the camera was just an engineering sample, far from final product.
The TL225 will sell for $350 in September. And a little sister, the TL220, will sell for $50 less thanks to a smaller rear screen (3 inches) and the omission of an HDMI video-out port. Both capture 12.2-megapixel photos and 720p HD video through 4.6X zoom lenses.
Connected Cam
Targeting photo sharing, the Samsung CL65 comes loaded with wireless capabilities: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. The cameras can log onto many Wi-Fi hotspots. Though without a Web browser, they won’t work at many public spots, such as Starbucks, that require you to enter a credit card number. (Sony’s Cyber-shot G3 can do that.)
With a connection, the CL65 offers one-touch uploads to Facebook, YouTube, and Picasa, as well as email capability. Entering email addresses on the touchscreen is pretty easy for anyone used to working soft keyboards on phones like the iPhone, and the camera remembers addresses so you don’t have to enter them again.
Two CL65s can also connect Zune-style to pass photos among each other. Sending photos is similar to pairing Bluetooth devices. You pick the other CL65 from an on-screen, menu and then give its owner a code to enter. I was able to start the photo transfer, but it didn’t finish – also probably because these are pre-production cameras.
Frankly, I’m most excited about the Bluetooth capability, which lets you get online even without a hotspot. The CL65 can pair with a phone over Bluetooth and send photos to it for uploading. Since all of these pictures can be GPS-tagged, this is a great camera to document your travels, in real time.
Of course, its’ still more work than just uploading pics from a cameraphone. But you get the benefit of better image quality. (Uploads are downsized to a modest two megapixels, but starting from a better, high-res original should provide better photos even after they are shrunken.)
The CL65 also sports a 3.5-inch touchscreen. This one lacks haptic feedback, but uses an accelerometer to respond to tilt commands. For example, tilt the camera forward to switch into video mode.
The 12.2-megapixel CL65 captures 720p video, sports a 5X internal zoom lens, and will sell for $400, also in September.
One oddity about all the cameras is their memory. Instead of the ubiquitous, uber-cheap SD card, all three models take the tiny micro-SD card. That means less capacity at higher prices. And you can’t use any of the SD cards you’ve probably stacked up over the years. OK, this may save a little bit of space to pack other goodies inside the camera’s slim lines. But for a line of cameras designed for ease of use, it’s a rather incongruous design choice.