Thursday, January 6, 2011
Samsung Launches More Dual Screen and Superzoom Compacts
Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 06:19 AM
Samsung's not done with cameras yet; this round is rather uninspiring though.
The first bath of cameras are Samsung's "DualView" cameras, essentially cameras with two LCD screens, one at the back and one on the front. Personally, I wonder how prevalent is the self-portrait culture is outside of East Asia? It is something I see a lot of young females do, so it makes sense for Samsung's home ground, but outside of it?
Anyway, the three cameras are the DualView PL120, PL170, and ST700. All are very similar, with the main differences coming in the sensor, lens and LCDs. The ST700 features a 16 megapixel LCD with an optically stabilised 5x 26-130mm equivalent f/3.3-5.9 lens and 3" and 1.8" LCDs (back and front respectively), with the 3" LCD being a touchscreen featuring Samsung's latest touch interface that reminds me of TouchWiz. The PL170 drops the front LCD down to 1.5" and loses the touchscreen feature, while the PL120 loses the optical stabilisation, and has a 14 megapixel sensor and 2.8" LCD instead. All three cameras record video in 720p, and will ship in March for about US$150, US$200 and US$280 respectively.
Samsung DualView PL120/PL170/ST700
Next up is the pair of superzooms; the WB210 and PL210. (By now Samsung numbering system has totally confused me). Both are 14 megapixel shooters with optical image stabilisation, with the former offering a 12x 24-288mm equivalent zoom lens and an optional 21mm equivalent converter, as well as a 3.5" touchscreen LCD with aforementioned TouchWiz UI); the latter comes with a 10x 27-270mm equivalent zom lens and a more standard 3" LCD screen. The pair will ship in February at about US$280 and US200 respectively.
