If you've been looking for an unholy union 'twixt smartphone and compact shooter, then Samsung's Galaxy Camera
can't come soon enough. The Android-powered snapper arrives in the UK
on Thursday November 8th, with an RRP of £399, unless, that is, you're
in the vicinity of the Samsung store.
If so, then the devices are being sold early at 5:00pm on November 7th,
when you can snag one a few hours early and enjoy some Champagne and
canapés supplied by the Korean behemoth.
Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy Camera
is a bit of a wild card, marrying Google's Android Jelly Bean OS with a
16-megapixel camera -- heck, it's even got a 4.8-inch 1,280 x 720-pixel
(308 ppi) touchscreen display. Yup, rather than offering a digital
viewfinder out back like a normal digital point-and-shoot, the Samsung
Galaxy Camera offers a multitouch panel; the entire back consists of
that 4.8-inch screen, edge-to-edge. It's not all touchscreen, though --
several buttons (controlling a pop-up flash, power, zoom toggle, and
shutter release) are also part of the somewhat bulky build. Beyond the
WiFi radio built in, the Galaxy Camera also comes with 3G/4G support via
micro-SIM -- which we now know at least one carrier will support: AT&T.
During an event with the cellular data carrier this evening, we got our
hands-on the Galaxy Camera once more (albeit now with an AT&T
micro-SIM on board). That speedy 1.4GHz quad-core processor helped us
along, speedily swiping through Jelly Bean's panes and launching its
photo app promptly. Apps like Instagram were also on display, allowing
for even nicer photos to be defiled by software filters (we kid!). The
AT&T connectivity allowed us to upload photos directly to the cloud
while snapping, utilizing its Auto Cloud Backup feature; image quality
isn't quite professional-grade, but its no slouch either.
The
Galaxy Camera is, for all intents and purposes, a full-on Android
smartphone ... minus that whole "phone" thing. Its heft is perhaps more
than we'd like in a point-and-shoot, but that gigantic -- and gorgeous
-- viewfinder out back certainly helps assuage our space concerns. The
device arrives at both carriers and camera retailers this October for an
unknown price.
