There’s been a dramatic uptick in amateur photography over the past few years — more people want to share more photos, and faster. This has led users to demand more and more from their smartphone cameras, while at the same time cheap DSLRs and the birth of Micro Four Thirds and other interchangeable-lens systems have put stupendously high-quality cameras in the hands of the everyman.
Design:
The Galaxy Camera is a pretty attractive device. It shares a lot of design DNA with Samsung’s regular cameras like the equally-attractive WB150, and apart from its enormous 4.8-inch touchscreen doesn’t look markedly different from anything already on the market. It is very wide compared to regular point-and-shoots, though, measuring over five inches across, a figure that can largely be attributed to the aforementioned screen. At a shade under three inches, it’s not particularly tall, but it is quite thick — 0.75 inches not including either the handgrip or lens. Its optically-stabilized 23mm f/2.8-5.9 lens almost doubles the overall thickness even when closed, and when fully extended is around 3 inches long.
A 16-megapixel sensor may sound impressive, but as you’re probably aware, sensor size is far more important than megapixel count. The Galaxy Camera’s sensor is a 1/2.3" unit, and although it’s backlit (which helps image quality) it’s very small. You’ll find bigger and better sensors in every camera in this price range, and cheaper high-end point-and-shoots like Canon’s high-end S100 have larger 1/1.73" sensors. In fact, Samsung’s sensor is only marginally larger than the one in the Nokia Lumia 920, and is dwarfed by that of another Nokia phone, the 808 PureView.
Aside from the glass of the screen and lens, the Galaxy Camera is an all-plastic affair, but feels well put together and sturdy, and the lightweight construction makes one-handed operation feasible, if not ideal.The built-in handgrip is a little too shallow for my tastes, and although it’s covered in easy-grip soft-touch plastic, the material ends well before the grip joins the front of the camera.
Samsung has hidden away the majority of the Galaxy Camera’s ports in a flap on its base. Opening it up reveals the removable 1650mAh battery (which thankfully stays in place even with the flap open), a Micro SIM slot, Micro HDMI port, and space for a microSD card. The lack of a full-sized SD card slot will disappoint many, but the Galaxy Camera does come with 4GB of onboard storage — good for around a thousand 16-megapixel photos — and microSD cards can now be purchased for next to nothing. On the side of the camera there’s a Micro USB port hidden by another small flap, and a single 3.5mm jack for a microphone or headphones.
You can buy the Galaxy Camera outright for $499 / £399 on both sides of the Atlantic, with AT&T and various UK carriers offering pre- and postpaid data SIMs. In the UK, camera outlets like Jessops are bundling in a SIM from mobile carrier Three with 1GB of free data, which should give you enough time to decide whether or not you want to take advantage of the 3G connectivity.
Samsung’s first attempt at connected camera software isn’t perfect. While its Android 4.1-based suite is full of good ideas, there’s just too much excess baggage.
Camera Interface:
Starting up the Galaxy Camera for the first time brings up Android’s regular setup screen, prompting you to connect to a Wi-Fi network and sign in with (or setup) your Google account. Next you’ll be asked if you want to sign up for, or sign into, Dropbox, where a bonus 48GB of extra cloud storage (free for two years) is waiting for youu. This offer will be familiar to anyone with a Galaxy S III or Galaxy Note, but on a dedicated camera it’s a real game-changer.
In the Galaxy Camera’s final mode, Expert, things start to go awry. The interface takes a page out of Apple’s book, mimicking the real-life design of a lens barrel. Strewn across the panel are settings for shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and exposure, while a final gauge displays a light meter. To change each setting, you simply swipe each setting up or down.
Performance:
The built-in lens produces fairly soft images, and the dynamic range (the distance between the brightest and darkest parts of an image) is pretty poor when compared to other cameras in this price range. Like many ultra-zoom lenses, when you’re zoomed all the way in or out you’ll find the picture is distorted — the center of the image will either bulge in or out. It’s not terrible, but many cameras have algorithms to automatically correct the distortion, which makes the omission here disappointing to say the least.
The built-in xenon flash works as you’d expect. It’s powerful enough and produces a fairly evenly-lit scene as long as you’re at least a yard or so away. As I mentioned before, it pops out of the camera housing when you trigger its mechanical button. One nice thing about this system is you won’t ever have the flash fire when you don’t want it to — the camera software is unable to trigger the flash unless you’ve already popped it up yourself.
Android:
A huge benefit Android has over the proprietary OSes of other cameras is editing. While many cameras have some basic retouching features, there aren’t many that have access to the sort of photo- and video-modification apps you can find in the Play store. Indeed, the first time you turn on your camera you’ll see a pair of Samsung-approved photo and video apps waiting for you. The Photo Wizard app offers virtually everything you’d want from a touch-based editor, but the Video Editor app, terrible themes aside, is completely forgettable. Luckily there are some more robust options in the Play store that you can combine to get a decent on-device experience. Once you’re happy with your modified image or video a quick tap of an on-screen button will let you share it with any app or service you want, including Dropbox.
You’ll also have access to a thousands of other apps and games, if that’s what you want from your camera. Skype is a good example; there’s been a small amount of confusion around what exactly this product can and can’t do with its Micro SIM, but it definitely can’t make cellular calls out of the box. If you’re really set on using the Galaxy Camera as a makeshift phone, you could always download a VOIP app. Skype calls worked just fine through the regular Android app, but I was stuck in speakerphone mode — there’s no ‘earpiece’ to speak of. Likewise, although I was able to see friends just fine while attempting video calls there’s no secondary camera, so I was stuck sharing a view of the wall behind my desk. Talking of sharing, you’ll also be able to broadcast live video on the go with apps like Livestream (as you can with virtually any Android device), which is nice. These apps can’t take full advantage of the Galaxy Camera’s enhanced sensor, however, as the compression used by VOIP and mobile streaming services kills fine details anyway.There’s also the issue of battery life. Samsung says it’s good for seven hours or so of continuous use, or 340 shots. That’s not bad for the point-and-shoot category. However, unlike your average camera, Samsung’s Galaxy Camera doesn’t really switches off as standard; like a phone, tapping on its power button just puts it into standby mode, and it’ll continue to go about its business, downloading your emails, uploading photos and videos, until you turn it on again or it runs out of battery.
Wind Up:
As a proof of concept, the Galaxy Camera is one of the most effective I’ve ever seen. Almost every idea that Samsung has tried here is not only good but works exactly as you’d expect it to. The only issue with the software is there’s too much of it. I can’t imagine a situation where I’d ever want to read a book on my camera — can you? And that's just one of many useless diversions left in Samsung’s first Android camera attempt.
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