Samsung Galaxy Cam hands on: An impressive merger of phone and camera

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Our hands-on impressions of the Samsung Galaxy Cam, which we liked a lot more than we thought we'd ever like a point-and-shoot camera with Android and a touchscreen.

When Samsung first unveiled its Galaxy Camera, I was more than skeptical. Samsung isn’t the first company to try this (Nikon’s Coolpix hybrid isn’t impressing anyone) and, as a general rule of thumb, things that seem too good to believe usually are. It’s often a perilous mission to jam two popular, expensive devices together. Somewhere, compromises have to be made and they’re usually crippling. Somehow, Samsung may have bucked the trend. The Galaxy Cam appears to be both a solid digital camera and a great touchscreen phone (minus voice service).

Tape a point-and-shoot camera to a Galaxy S3

If you want to know what it’s like to use the Galaxy Cam, try taping a Galaxy S3 to a digital camera. Now, imagine these two devices actually communicated. The Galaxy Cam has a 4.8-inch screen and internal processing power and specs that nearly match Samsung’s flagship phone. Only with a 21x optical zoom built into the front and other camera requirements like a 21x zoom.

It’s a great phone

The Galaxy Cam looks like a camera on the front, but it’s all touchscreen-operated Android joy in the back. I was pleasantly surprised how well the Android interface worked. It looks just like the Galaxy S3′s TouchWiz interface, but runs slightly smoother (my opinion), which may be due to Samsung upgrading the operating system to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), Google’s newest, slickest OS. The Cam packs a full 1.4GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor with 1GB of RAM and the 4.8-inch touchscreen is 1280 x 720 pixels and runs on a very nice “Super Clear” LCD technology. It can also connect up to 4G LTE networks. I lay out those hardware specifications not to bore you, but to illustrate that the Galaxy Cam is running on hardware that is as fast as what we’re seeing on top-of-the-line smartphones right now. As a phone (if it actually was a phone), it’s already very nice. We used several downloaded apps and poured through the menus like any other phone.

Really, the only thing a Galaxy Cam can’t do that a phone can is make calls, but it can do Skype, so if you were really hell-bent on using it as your only device, you probably could. Chatting can be accomplished with any client.

Somehow, it’s a great camera too

Open up the camera app on the Galaxy Cam or press the shutter button, and you’re now using the best camera phone… possibly ever. The Galaxy Cam has 21x optical zoom, a pop-out flash for shooting in the dark, microSD card support, an easily removable battery, and Micro HDMI and USB slots for charging. But the real impressive part was the camera app itself. I fully expected Samsung to skimp on the software, but it has developed what appears to be a pretty thorough camera app that takes good advantage of the Cam’s abilities.

If you press the big silver onscreen button when in camera mode, you can enter four modes. You can set it on Auto, Casual, Smart Pro, or Expert mode. Auto and Casual are pretty basic, as is Smart Pro mode, which has some basic settings for camera novices looking to kick it up a notch. If you want to, say, take a macro shot, a silhouette  a night shot, or an action shot, this mode lets you select between these types of environments with simple labels and pictures. Expert mode is where it’s at, though.

This is not a DSLR, but in Expert mode, Samsung has really given advanced users a lot of the settings they need. Using an onscreen camera lens with wheels for each setting, you can adjust your shutter speed, aperture, ISO and other settings. You can also set it to Manual, Auto, Aperture, or Shutter mode to help focus on the settings you need. I’m no camera expert, but I haven’t seen an expert touch menu this easy to use before. Samsung has made really good use of the touchscreen to simplify these settings. 

I didn’t get a chance to try it out, but the Galaxy Cam can record video at up to 120 frames per second, which should excite those of you who love to play around with slow motion video.

Possible downsides

There are a lot of ways this device could still go wrong. Most importantly is price. I do not know how this device won’t cost at least $600, and at that price, it has a lot of competition. Then there’s the issue of sharing photos. Samsung has included some of its own sharing services, but not everyone is going to want to use them. Luckily, since it can download apps from the Google Play store, you can likely use other apps like Google Plus or Dropbox to upload photos automatically. Finally, connecting a camera to AT&T’s 4G LTE network might be expensive. Even if you have one of the company’s new Mobile Share plans, it will likely cost you $20 a month to just connect the Galaxy Cam to the network, and that’s before you start using data (which is shared between devices). You’ll need to upload your videos over Wi-Fi no matter what you do.

I must admit again that though the photos I took looked impressive, given the lighting conditions, I am not a camera reviewer. I can tell you that its capabilities are leagues above any cell phone, but looking at it, you would already expect that. The camera may fail to impress experts. Still, as someone who must routinely photograph gadgets in poor lighting conditions, it’s a device that seemed to mostly match the quality of photos I get out of my Olympus Pen E-PL2, which is a Micro Four Thirds device, and most definitely not a full-fledged DSLR. The Galaxy Cam doesn’t even have swappable lenses. 

It’s looking good

Assuming Samsung doesn’t price it too high for the casual market and the final unit lives up to the experiences I had with it last week, the Galaxy Cam may be a really cool option for someone looking to merge more aspects of their gadget lives. It sounds bad, but I almost wish that this giant thing actually had phone functionality built into it. At least then it could actually eliminate the need to carry around two devices. As it stands, Galaxy Cam buyers will likely still have a smartphone and a really nice point-and-shoot camera. The big question is, are point-and-shoot camera buyers enthusiastic enough to buy a device like this, or will they just use the camera already on their iPhone or Galaxy S3? What I do know is that Samsung has made real progress here, whether the Galaxy Cam is a massive success or not. This is a device that will make a lot of camera owners jealous.

Source : http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-cam-hands-on/

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Nook HD and Nook HD+ impressions: The Kindle Fire killer

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We go hands on with the new 7-inch Nook HD and 9-inch Nook HD+. Our full impressions.

Today Barnes & Noble has unveiled the Nook Tablet HD (7-inch) and Nook Tablet HD+ (9-inch), two completely new tablets. If there’s one thing I learned from B&N representatives when I spent some time with the new Nooks yesterday, it’s that the Amazon Kindle Fire HDs are inferior to the new Nooks in every way. While companies are typically shy of their competition, Barnes & Noble is not quiet about its competitors. According to the traditional book retailer turned digital seller, its new Nook tablets are faster, lighter, more feature rich, and easier to hold than any Kindle Fire. But is it true or is it a clever marketing gimmick? Judging from my first experiences with the new Nook HD and HD+, B&N may have good reason to go on the offense.

Lighter, faster, and easier to hold

The first device I held was the Nook HD, a new 7-inch tablet. From the moment I picked it up, I was impressed by how comfortable and easy to grip it was. Instead of going with an entirely flat glass front screen like almost every tablet these days, Barnes & Noble has surrounded its screen with a pleasantly grippy plastic, which is supposed to make it easier to hold and cut down on unwanted fingerprints. The grippy plastic curves right around to the back of the tablet, which now resembles the Nook E Ink e-readers more than the old Nook Color. The new tablet is not only easier to grip, it’s much nicer on your arms, weighing only 11.1 ounces (315 grams), much lighter than the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD. The Nook HD also beats its competitors in pixel count with an impressive 1440 x 900 pixel screen, exceeding the 1280×800 pixel norm.

The Nook HD+ is a larger tablet, but also feels very lightweight and more comfortable to hold than a typical tablet, an important point for Barnes & Noble, which still says these devices are made for reading, when push comes to shove. The HD+ takes on the iPad and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 with a unique 9-inch screen with an impressive 1920×1280 pixel resolution. Placed vertically atop an iPad, it seems to be about the same thickness (maybe a hair more) and height, but because it employs a 3:2 aspect ratio, it’s much narrower. This aspect ratio, again, makes it resemble and feel more like a book. In fact, B&N believes the HD+ is also well suited for magazine viewing, video, and comic books. So well suited that Barnes & Noble has opened up a new video store and expanded its magazine offerings to be more interactive and robust. You can now create scrapbooks out of your downloaded magazines. A new HDMI peripheral even lets you stream 1080p movies to your HDTV.

Neither tablet will blow your britches away in the spec department, but they hold their own against Amazon’s offerings (maybe not the Nexus 7, however). Both Nook HDs have microSD slots, 8-32GB of internal flash memory storage, and dual-core OMAP 4470 processors (1.3/1.5GHz) with 1GB of RAM, which B&N points out is faster than the Kindle Fire HD’s OMAP 4460 processors. Both devices also run on a heavily modified version of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which I’m told has helped B&N’s ability to court developers and improved the quality of apps available. Its store now carriers more than 10,000 apps.

Did I mention the battery life? Amazon estimates that the HD will get 10.5 hours of reading and the HD+ will manage 10 hours. Not bad, especially considering that the batteries have not grown in size since the Nook Tablet. Somehow B&N has been able to improve all of its specs, even the screen and improve battery life without increasing the size of its batteries.

Multiple logins for the family

One of the coolest new ideas B&N showed off is the idea of having profile accounts for everyone who uses a tablet anyone, with a family twist. No Android tablet has gotten multiple logins right, but Barnes & Noble seems to have figured it out. Families can create profiles for everyone complete with separate email, apps, and content. If you’re a parent, you can even restrict your kids to certain books or features and secure your login with a passcode. Finally, no one will have to know how many times you read Fifty Shades of Gray on your HD Nook.

Nook Channels

Another of my favorite new features is Nook Channels. Barnes & Noble has been selling books for many decades and this feature takes advantage of that expertise. Instead of simply recommending new e-books based on genre or what other, similar, customers purchased, B&N is using real humans to create and curate ‘channels’ of content specially tailored to you based on the books you read. In a sense, it’s like a simplified version of Pandora, which also uses actual music experts to categorize songs. 

Slow interface

Unfortunately, it’s not all roses for the new Nook HD and HD+. I’m hoping that what I saw were developer units, but the interface featured looked a bit cartoony and animation lagged significantly. Sadly, it reminded me of the one thing that would make a B&N executive cry: the Kindle Fire. Amazon’s first tablet (and the Nook Color, if we’re going to be fair) was underpowered and felt slow compared to higher-end tablets. Judging from the specs, there really isn’t a reason why these tablets were so slow. Hopefully it is a software issue that’s already been fixed. I’m also hoping that a bit more work goes into the design of the interface. While completely serviceable, it doesn’t match the sleekness of the Kindle Fire HD or Nexus 7 user interfaces, though the bubbly, brightly colored interface may appeal more to moms and families, who B&N is obviously pining for. Still, even moms don’t want laggy tablets.

Good pricing

I’m hoping Barnes & Noble doesn’t launch a line of laggy tablets. Assuming these issues are fixed before the new tablets launch in late October, the Nook HD and Nook HD+ are two extremely capable and competitive consumption devices. The Nook HD will retail starting at $200 for 8GB of storage. The Nook HD+ will start at $270 for the 16GB model and $300 for the 32GB model. At about half the price of an iPad, the 9-inch version should be especially compelling. Overall, I’m excited to try out the new Nook models. It’s easy to forget that Barnes & Noble is a player in the tablet space, but it showed today that it’s not going anywhere. Amazon, watch out! You can pre-order the Nook tablets at Nook.com and check them out at Barnes & Noble and some other select retailers around the U.S. and UK. 

Source : http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nook-hd-and-nook-hd-plus-hands-on/

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