February 15th, 2008Review of Samsung NV10 digital Camera
Although not a completely new camera, the NV10 gained my attention after I become aware of a very unique excellence about it in their TV ad. I noticed a series of unlabeled buttons right below the screen that were being used to scroll through the pictures taken. I had to see what was up with that, in its place I found a complete lot more.
Design & Features
At 97×60x19 mm, the NV10 is easily pocket able and at 190 grams you won’t even feel it’s there. The best and the most distinguished feature about the NV10 is its unique and tremendously effective interface. Instead of the standard D-pad and OK button action that most cameras use, this one has a series of buttons around the screen – something like X and Y axis that control all the navigation and action of the camera.
The buttons are highly touch responsive that highlight options on screen as you gently move your fingers over them. To activate an option, simply press the matching button. It’s almost like using a touch screen interface, just more accurate. On the top of the camera you will find the mode dial, power button and shutter release. There’s also a cute little flash hidden around the top-center that pops up at what time required. the length of by means of the by now mentioned buttons there’s also a zoom switch and a play button to view the clicked pictures. The 2.5 creep LCD display works pretty well under most lighting conditions. I personally didn’t have any visibility issues with it even under bright sunlight.
Even in its ultra-compact body, Samsung did manage to fit in a little hand-grip on the right, which helps with single handed operation. The manual features in the camera revolve mostly around setting your own exposure and color, but no manual focus. I particularly love the white balance meter, which instead of giving you the same old presets, just gives you a color bar which you can navigate with the slider below because your display gives you an immediate preview. It’s a lot more effective and a better way to set the colors you approximating. There are, as one can be expecting, a plethora of scene modes to choose from but it was the property mode that I had the most fun with. Take a look at a quantity of of the shots below.
Performance
In general there isn’t really anything worth complaining about. The image quality in terms of sharpness may not be top notch but it does bring the goods. The shots I took in my tests did seem slightly un-sharp at full view, but that didn’t take much away from the details. Still, I predictable more from a 10 mega pixel camera. The colors were entirely soaked keeping the consumer’s requirements in mind. Things appeared more vivid than customary but not soaked enough to damage the image quality.
I wasn’t too impressed with the 3 second start-up delay but the shot to shot time was pretty good with 1.5 seconds between shots (without flash) and around 0.7 seconds in high speed mode. I particularly liked the nighttime scene mode. As you can see from the image below, the NV10 kept a good balance of slow shutter pace and a somewhat high ISO. This technique you get a clear night shot with minimal noise, with the only catch that you have to keep the camera on a still outside for a few seconds when taking the picture.
Macros turned out pretty good, and the NV10 had no problem focusing on objects till up to an inch away, as you can see from the ultra macro of the Hulk statuette below. Like I said, there’s nothing worth bad tempered about in its functionality. The NV10’s meant to satisfy the average consumer and I’m very sure it will. The border is great, the image quality is nice, and it’s got the extra bells and whistles to appeal to everyone. The only problem is its hefty cost tag of Rs. 19,900 (street price).
So in the end it all comes down to performance vs. features. If you need a better performer in terms of picture quality, pace and manual options, I’d suggest you take a look at the Casio Exilim series. But if its fun features and a high ‘cool’ issue that you’re looking for then look no further.
