Samsung DualView TL225

The PC Magazine has posted an aritlce about Samsung TL225 digital camera.

It's not easy for a camera manufacturer to come up with that one killer feature that will set its shooter apart from the crowded pack. Samsung has done just that with by adding an LCD to the front of the 12.2-megapixel Samsung DualView TL225 ($349.99 list). Acting as a forward-facing viewfinder, the second display gives you an easy way to capture self-portraits. An innovative idea, but you can't help but wonder if this camera is a one-trick pony.
Thankfully, it's not—the combination of an excellent user interface, a high-resolution 3.5-inch, touch-screen LCD, and stellar image quality help make the TL225 our latest Editors' Choice point-and-shoot camera.

Measuring 2.4 by 3.9 by .73 (HWD), the TL225's thin body is a sleek black with a ring of color (purple, orange, red or blue), and doesn't include many physical controls. Along the top of the camera, you'll find the shutter release, a Power button, a Play button, and a Zoom slider. With its $299.95 (list) Coolpix S60, Nikon made the mistake of omitting physical Zoom controls, instead putting the Zoom slider on the touch screen, which makes zooming much more difficult when you're framing shots. With a focal length of 27-124.2mm (35mm equivalent) and maximum aperture of f/3.5-5.9, the TL225 offers an impressive 4.6x zoom range. The 27mm wide-angle lens is a nice addition; you can fit more into the frame without having to further distance yourself from your subject.

Two Displays are Better than OneWhile the camera's bonus front LCD is the attention grabber here, the 3.5-inch touch-screen display that dominates the back panel is also very impressive. With 1,152K dots and 800-by-480-pixel resolution, it's the sharpest display you'll find on any camera. Its resolution even trumps the LCDs on high-end smartphones like the Apple iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. By comparison, top-tier point-and-shoot cameras, like the $330 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700, typically include 230K-dot displays, while high-end D-SLRs, such as the Canon EOS Rebel T1i ($899.99 list) usually pack 921K dots. Images on the TL225's LCD are incredibly crisp with excellent contrast and color. In my tests, I never had any trouble seeing the display while indoors or in bright sunlight. The screen also offers haptic feedback, so the camera vibrates gently when you press one of its on-screen buttons, so you know you've made contact. The touch-screen is extremely responsive and navigating the user interface is a breeze.

At 1.5-inches, the front-facing LCD is small and with 61K dots, it's significantly lower-resolution than the main display, but it's more than enough to let you know if you and your buddies are in the frame. The LCD is located to the left of the lens, and tapping it turns it on and off. Also, it turns on automatically when one of three front-display-enabled shooting modes are activated: Self Portrait, Self Timer, or Children. The latter of which shows an animated clown intended to get kids to smile for the camera. (Heck, it even worked on me!)

Performance ResultsSpeed results for the TL225 are a mixed bag: You can power up the camera and snap a picture in an average of 2.28 seconds, while the wait time between shots is only 2.37 seconds. Using Shooting Digital's Shutter Lag Test, the TL225 averaged an underwhelming .63 seconds for shutter press to image capture. This is a bit of a drag considering that the $330 Canon PowerShot SD980 IS cuts this time down to .44 seconds, while the very-speedy Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZR1 ($280) averaged just .32 seconds of lag.

The camera takes fantastic pictures and thus showed good results in our photo lab. Imatest indicated some distortion at each lens position, but not enough to cause images to warp significantly. At its wide-angle position (27mm), 1.67 percent of the image is affected by barrel distortion. The Panasonic ZR1 had similar results at its widest angle (25mm) with 1.70 percent; distortion nearly doubled to 2.97 percent with the Canon SD980 IS (at 24mm). There's some pincushion distortion at the TL225's telephoto position, but it's insignificant at 1.34 percent.

Shots taken with the TL225 are sharp at the center of the frame, averaging 2116 lines per picture height. Moving towards the outside regions, the sharpness drops by 42 percent–better than the Canon SD980's 56 percent drop or the 52 percent drop with the Panasonic ZR1. The TL225 does a fine job of handling noise too. In my tests, the camera produced usable images up to ISO 800.

The TL225 can shoot 720p high-definition video at 30 frames per second. Like its sibling, the Samsung SL820, footage from the TL225 looks and sounds great, but audio is muted while zooming to avoid picking up the lens motor hum. Also, if you use the optical zoom while recording, the lens can't refocus.

Using a proprietary HDMI cable, the camera can display high-def video on an HDTV, and even supports Consumer Electronics Control (CEC), so you can use your compatible television remote to navigate through the menus on the attached camera. Like the HDMI cable, the USB cable also includes a proprietary connector, but the camera can also charge its battery via USB. The Canon SD980 IS includes standard mini USB and mini HDMI ports, which are more convenient, and the accompanying cables are easier to replace.

The TL225 writes to microSDHC cards, omitting the standard SDHC card slot found in most other digital cameras. Used in most cell phones, I wouldn't be surprised to see microSDHC become commonplace in digital cameras in the near future. But if you have standard-size SD or SDHC cards from an old camera, you're out of luck here.

We don't formally test camera battery life, but you should keep in mind that the TL225 does have two LCDs, and one of them is a big, high-res screen that could potentially suck a lot of power. While it wasn't a huge problem, I did have to charge my TL225 a couple of times during the week-long test period.

With solid image quality, an incredibly sharp and responsive touch-screen LCD, and an innovative front-mounted display for self-portraits, the Samsung DualView TL225 delivers a stellar shooting experience, so it's our latest Editors' Choice point-and-shoot camera. But if $350 is out of your price range, Samsung offers a more-affordable DualView camera, the TL220 ($299.99 list), with the same feature set save for HDMI connectivity and an ultra-high resolution display.

For more information, please click: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353777,00.asp#

Compared by PCMag: Samsung HMX-20C

The PCMag.com compared some digital camcorders including Samsung HMX-20C.

Here is a link to the information.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2339932,00.asp

Review by PCMag.com: Samsung YP-S2 "Pebble"

The PCMAG.COM has reviewed Samsung's YP-S2, the Pebble as bellow:

Samsung YP-S2
REVIEW DATE: 07.17.08


** SPEC DATA **
Radio: No
Recording, Voice: No
Recording, Line In: No
Video Recording: No
Music Playback Formats: MP3, OGG, WMA
Audio Battery Life: 9.5 Hr
Storage Capacity: 1 GB
Dimensions: 1.62 x 1.66 x 0.65 inches
Weight: 7.68 oz

** BOTTOM LINE**

Awfully similar to Creative's ZEN Stone in looks, price, and performance, the Samsung YP-S2 is an excellent alternative to the iPod shuffle.

** PROS**
Small and lightweight. Cheap. Gym-friendly earphones. Can create playlists on the go.

** CONS **

Earbuds lack bass. Necklace earphone design not for everyone. Cable-free PC connection is awkward.

** REVIEW **
First there was the Creative ZEN Stone, and now we have the "Pebble," Samsung's YP-S2 (also known as the S2). I'm not sure why the inexpensive MP3 player market has adopted geological names, but it's true that both the Stone and the S2 are rock-solid devices. A screenless, diminutive MP3 player, the $39 S2 has 1GB of flash memory and some other laudable features, including a button for editing playlists on the go and gym-friendly earbuds. Is it a fantastic player? Well, it's a cheap player, and it does its simple job well.

At 1.7 by 1.6 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and a pebble-esque 0.5 ounces, the device has smooth contours that call to mind the ZEN Stone. A color-coded light on top of the S2 tells you what the player is up to Blue stands for repeat-all mode, green-to-blue-to-magenta means random, and magenta signifies that the S2 is running through a playlist. The controls are on the bottom panel, with each button serving different functions depending on how long you press it and what mode you're in. Power and play/pause occupy the same button, volume up and down buttons double as add-song-to-playlist controls, and there are skip forward and backward buttons as well.
The S2's earbuds stay in place well enough to qualify as gym-friendly, and the cable has an integrated neck strap, as well as a loop for a lanyard. Not everyone will love the around-the-neck design of the earbuds (they look a bit like a necklace), but you shouldn't have any trouble keeping them in place, whether you're working out or just commuting.

Less convenient is the fact that instead of using a cable, the computer connection is achieved with a small adapter that connects the player's 3.5mm headphone jack to your PC's USB port. Folks with crowded USB areas may not like having it there, since the player may block other ports on your computer while it charges or loads content.

The S2 offers support for WMA, MP3, and OGG files. Though this isn't an overwhelming collection of formats, I am glad to see that the Pebble plays nice with OGG tracks. Of course, the lack of a screen means no photo or video playback—the Pebble is simply a music player.

As befitting a simple music player, creating a playlist is a snap. When you hear a song you want to add to your playlist, press the "+" button (in repeat or random modes) and it's added to the list. Switching to playlist mode immediately starts the device playing tracks you've selected in this way. Obviously, we're not talking about managing a bunch of different playlists here, just one that can be created easily. In other words, it's a handy way to create one subset of your music for one specific mood or purpose, like when you're feeling emo, or for when you need a boost to keep you jogging.

There's not much use in obsessing over this device's audio quality. While the included earbuds don't sound great due to a lack of bass presence, they're a big part of the player's design. Replace them with a better pair and you'll likely lose the ability to wear the S2 around your neck. If you don't mind losing this gym-friendliness, however, the recently released Ultimate Ears Loud Enough and Radius Atomic Bass Earphones are decent $40 'phones.

Don't plan on marathon listening sessions with this player; its battery life is as low as its profile. Samsung itself rates the S2's battery life at a modest 13 hours of playback. My test results were even less impressive. I got 9.5 hours of playback—disappointing, but comparable to the ZEN Stone's roughly 8 hours of playback time.

Which is better, the ZEN Stone or the S2? It depends on what's important to you. If price is the key factor, the ZEN Stone is available for less (as low as $35). But for just a little bit more money, the S2 has its cool button for switching play modes and creating playlists. The S2 looks a little snazzier, too. In any case, either player is a better buy than the 1GB iPod shuffle, which sells for $50 and brings only iTunes-friendliness to the table. If you're not locked into iTunes and need a solid, cheap gym player, the S2 and the ZEN Stone are both very good buys.

The article above is from

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2325907,00.asp