Samsung MV800
We know for a fact that the Samsung MV800
is tough: It suffered a beating at the hands of the courier who delivered our
sample camera for review, and it survived the ordeal admirably.
The courier pouch was in perfect condition
but inside the box was shredded into four pieces and the camera was bouncing
around without any protection. Despite that abuse the matt black aluminum
finish of the Samsung was in perfect condition and the camera itself was in
very good condition. The only damage we could see was a sticking lens cover
which didn't prevent us from using the MV800 in anger.
Samsung MV800
The MV suffix stands for Multi View and
refers to the flip up 3.0" TFT touch-screen.
This is one of those love-it-or-hate-it
moments. The idea behind the MV screen is that you can flip it out partially to
act as a tripod, or you can flip it horizontally in order that you can point
the camera upwards and still see what you will be photographing. The final option
is to flip the screen all the way up so you can see yourself in the screen when
you hold the camera at arm's length to take those 'Having a wild time' photos
that you see all over Facebook.
When you flip the screen up you'll find
that the edge covers the shutter button which sounds like a bit of a problem.
To get round this issue Samsung has added a
shutter button on the back of the camera that is revealed when the screen is
raised.
Your reviewer admired the technology and
thinking that Samsung has employed but the feature is of minimal interest to
the middle aged. Teenage kids, on the other hand, thought it was blooming
marvelous so it sounds like we'll have to agree to disagree.
When the screen is folded down (in its
correct and logical position) there are two hardware buttons available for Home
and Transfer, in addition to the zoom, shutter and On/ Off button.
Samsung achieves this tidy design by
employing a touchscreen that enables you to select a shooting mode from the 25
choices on offer. These are spread over four screens that you flick from side
to side, just like a mobile phone. It would be unfair to list all 25, so here
are a few that appealed to the kids; Self Shot, Picture in Picture, Magic
Frame, Funny Face and Intelligent Portrait.
We found, for instance, that Smart Movie
mode produced better 720p movies than the regular Movie mode - but neither was
brilliant. On the plus side the 5x optical zoom was inaudible on the movie
soundtrack but the general point is that there are so many options and modes
that you need to invest some time in trial and error.
Samsung supplies a proprietary USB cable
that you use both to charge the battery using a supplied mains adapter and also
to connect the camera to your PC or laptop. Once the camera is connected it offers
to install a copy of Intel-studio software which was updated online to the
latest 3.1 version. Annoyingly, both the USB and HDMI connections are
proprietary so if you have a yen to connect the Samsung to your HDTV you'll
need to buy a Samsung HDMI cable.
This is a decent camera that can take
surprisingly good photos, although it requires a fair amount of work on the
part of the owner to get the best results. Considering that the moveable
touch-screen must add a certain amount to the cost of the components it seems
to us that Samsung has done well to sell the MV800 for $238.5.
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Details
Price: $238.5
Manufacturer: Samsung
Website: www.samsung.com
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