Samsung 12MP Dig Camera 4.6X Opt 3 In LCD Red

First off let me say that the reviewer that said it is hard to delete your photo's right away simply does not know what he/she is talking about! Obviously they have not read the manual, researched the camera before buying it, or did not spend as much time with it as maybe they should have.

All you have to do to delete a photo or movie clip "right away" is, with your finger make an "X" on the screen (Touch Screen) over the picture, a delete button pops-up you press it and the picture is gone. It literally takes 2 seconds, if that.

Below is my review of what I have discovered so far, mind you I DO NOT Personally own the Camera yet, mine is on the way, but I have toyed with it for probably almost 3 hours already at Best Buy (Went to Best Buy again today just to toy with this Camera some more, Twice! Once by Myself, another with my daughter). I have done extensive research on the TL225 and the TL220 (an incredible amount). The review below was written by me a couple days ago for a different web-site to educate folks on this camera.

Here ya gooo...

I went to Best Buy yesterday and played around with the TL220 (st500 and st550 in Europe and Asia, and is the same cam as the TL225, just less features) for over an hour (no kidding, an employee told me to "Just buy the thing already"lol), and I can not express how much I LOVE this thing!

I have never had so much fun playing around with a camera before! It is sooo user friendly, I picked it up and knew everything within a couple of minutes!

The Pictures it took where pretty good, it didn't do so well with close moving subjects, much blurr, but still pics where clear and the colors where vibrant. I found a Korean site to where a gentleman who bought this Cam posted a TON of Pic's, they all looked wonderful as-well. He also stated that this was a "Very Very good Cam".

My favorite feature that sent me over the top was the "Beauty Shot" mode and front LCD feature! I have scars on my face due to acne (pretty bad scaring), and I went into Best Buy looking greasy and very sweaty (just got off of work). The pictures I took of myself in Beauty Shot mode made me look like a Model!!! I am not kidding, my face went from greasy and nasty in regular pics I was taking of myself, to looking like I belonged on a runway for a photoshoot once in Beauty Mode!!! I was SHOCKED at how perfectly complected my face looked, you could not see one acne scar or blemish, it was amazing! I did not expect this feature to work so well!!!

I took probably 80 or so pic's of myself, I absolutely love the front screen! Yes, I took pics of myself before, but only for web-sites a forum purposes. With this, it was a BLAST!!! I had so much fun with this camera, I did not expect myself to care to much for the front screen, but I will be using it all the time once I pick-up this cam!!

All I was looking for was a decent point and shoot that had great HD video and good quality Pic's for vacationing, and playing with this cam for as long as I did sent me over the edge with all the features it has, I REALLY LOVE IT! I would like to note that my fiance owns the Nikon D90 and I use it often, so I have some decent knowledge on how pictures should look. I also own my share of P&S cams.

The girl at Best Buy told me they Sold Out right away and have the cam on back-order, and that she hears nothing but good things about it (she is actually going to school for photography and said she thinks the cam is a really good buy, and she was not saying this because she works there, I have known her for atleast a year already (from Best Buy) so we are more friends then me being just a customer to her.

I also tested the HD video and it was WONDERFUL! Someone posted 3 test vids on YouTube using the tl220, the new compression format makes it look like HD even when choosing not to watch in HD! Never seen such great quality Vid before in a camera!!! It is also REALLY REALLY cool how you can Pause when recording, and then resume play when you decide to, this way all recordings are on the same file. You can also edit the vid in camera by trimming the vid, meaning takeout parts you don't want and keep what you do want.

I will be getting the TL225 instead of the TL220. It has a bigger screen, metal back instead of the Tl220's plastic back, HDMI inputs (for viewing your Pics and Vid on an HD TV) that the TL220 does not have, and I believe the TL225 has 2 more modes that the TL220 does not have. One is Action mode (which may fix the blurr in moving subjects, it should), and another mode I have which to identify. The TL225 shows 16 different modes in "Smart Capture" mode, and TL220 shows 14. The TL225's also has haptic feedback, which vibrates the screen slightly so the user knows when he/she selects a command, TL220 does not have this. The TL225 also wieghs a half-ounce more then the TL220 due to the choice of displays. One more thing to note is that the TL220 3.0-inch LCD screen resolution has 230,000 dots, while the TL225 has much much higher resolution at 1,152,000 dots on it's 3.5-inch LCD, the highest ever resolution on a Point and Shoot Camera (for you newbe's the higher the resolution the clearer the screen will be and you will be able to see more detail on whatever it is you are taking a picture of). To me, the extra $50 for the TL225 is well worth it if you can offord it.

Note that both Cams (TL220 and TL225) look identical other then the back screen being bigger on the TL225, and the colors they come in. I do wish the TL225 came in Red and Blue, but the orange will have to do for me. I will also be posting this same review for the TL220 for people looking to get that since thats the actual Cam that I toyed with.

I have done sooo much research on these cams in the past 2 weeks it is ridiculous!!lol I will give a more extensive review once I have this puppy to play with for longer then just a couple of hours.

All I have to say is I LOVE THIS CAM and can't wait to get it, it def exceeded my expectations thus far! :)

TL220 Review

PROS

Menu system is fast. For a touchscreen i find it to be more than adequate. Response times don't keep you waiting.

Very "iphone-ish" in the sense that its touch and has features like multi-delete (select as many pictures as you want to delta in one fatal swoop instead of deleting a single image at a time), accelerometer for browsing pictures and tap to focus, which is sweet.

Sweet continuous shoot mode. Seems to capture fractions of a second at a time.

HD Video is very nice. You can trim video on the device itself and select a frame from the video to save as a photo.

Form factor is great. Not the smallest, but the size seems to fit the quality.

5x Optical Zoom is a treat for a point and shoot.

Fast boot to picture: It takes less than 3 seconds to power on the camera and snap your first photo.

I like that it has distinctly different audible beeps for 1) a positive auto focus lock and 2) when its not able to autolock the focus on your subject. Even the front LCD displays a "red Reticle" for bad focus and a "green reticule" for perfect focus when doing self portraits.

Smart Modes: In my low lit living room, the camera auto-detected that there was not adequate light and adjusted itself for the environment. The result, a nice picture with lightened features with no dark spots.

Slide show mode: You can select exactly what pictures you want to play. You don't have to sit through all photos, including the bad ones. It has about 5 different preset audio tracks to play while watching the slide show. Nice touch.

Image Stabilization works in both photo mode and video mode.

Can record video without an audio track if no audio is needed.

CONS:

Front LCD Screen does not turn on when shooting in video

Micro SD a pain to deal with (adapters etc)

When shooting video, when you zoom in or out, the audio cuts out while the lens is in motion. Once the lens stops moving, the audio kicks in again. very odd.

When importing into iPhoto on Snow Leopard, the videos do not have thumbnails or video preview. They appear as black squares in the photo album until played.

You have the ability to attach audio snippets to your pictures while they are in the camera. However, once you import all pictures, the wav file is separated from the picture and it becomes an orphaned file. IT doesn't stay embedded in the picture or data file. So you end up with an SD card full of wav files in your card unless you delete them.

MINOR GRIPES

Battery door seems flimsy. Since this is where the MicroSD card is I'm a bit nervous it may break in the coming months.

Move the clown image for small kids to a more intuitive location in the software (like with the other front LCD settings).

The camera does a nice job at recognizing faces then waiting for them to smile before taking a picture. Problem is that once you sync the pictures to your computer and empty the SD card to make room for the next round of photos, the face recognition goes away and you have to reset those faces you previously detected again. It memorizes up to 20 faces, but they don't stay in the camera permanently. That is unless, you leave the pictures on the camera after syncing them to your laptop.

Only place i noticed some lag was in picture review (scrolling side to side to view pictures).

No mac software included. Only Windows.

Display brightness setting only affects rear LCD, not front facing LCD.

Not intuitive how to set your own start up image when the camera powers on. I found the option but it's not as intuitive as the other menus and I have yet to figure it out.

The camera is HD. Why not include an HD cable to connect to ones TV

MAJOR GRIPE

Speaking of TVs, this morning I hooked up the Samsung TL220 to my TV to play some video that I shot. Boy was that a mistake. Two concerns: One is that when connected to the TV the screen on the camera goes blank. Instead you navigate by looking at the TV where a small mouse cursor appears. This takes some getting used to. Two (and the largest issue here) is that it kills battery life. The camera charged over night, and by 11am (after shooting some baby videos and outputting them to the TV) the battery just died. You get a nice message saying battery is low, and then it shuts off. So, caution when connecting camera to a TV. It burns the battery at both ends!

What I WOULD ADD IN THE NEXT VERSION

SD Card instead of MicroSD (eliminate need for adapters)

Metal case for durability

GPS tagging

BlueTooth transfer

Front video screen enabled when shooting video

IN SUMMARY

Nice camera. I opted for the $299 job which has smaller pixel density on the rear LCD and is 3" instead of 3.5". In my opinion, the extra $50 is a nice option, but the innards are all the same. Plus, i like the ergo-grip that the extra space on the back of the camera offers when you opt for the 3" screen. It inspires confidence that the total stranger i ask to snap my picture wont drop the camera.

4 out of 5 stars.

Well thought out device.

Highly recommended.

Buy Samsung 12MP Dig Camera 4.6X Opt 3 In LCD Red Now

I have to admit I fell for the glam on this cam. Sampled this versus the Sony TSC-90 at Best Buy. The Sony has the "burst" mode and the "ooooo" moment when you can get massive panaromic shots. Both have the "cool" touch screens. The Samsung has the dual-screen feature, which is another "cool" feature with the small LCD on the front for self-portraits. That and the ton of touchy features... I took the plunge at Best Buy and with service plan spent $370. Oh, no SD card included so that's an extra cost.

The Samsung really wants you to do everything with the USB cord. It attaches to a wall plug (like an iPhone does) for recharging (or through USB to computer). It is also the better way to upload your pics. Getting the microSD card out of the camera requires tweezers or great fingernails. Big negative there.

But the bottom line for any camera is picture quality. You can read all the great reviews of the Samsung here about how easy it is, great battery life, etc. But I was vastly disappointed with the quality of most of my pictures, especially low light (which is supposedly another great thing about the camera).

My main camera is a Nikon DSLR and before that a Canon DSLR for comparison sake. I always have a point-and-shoot around for ease of use without the bulky DSLR and lenses. I had hoped this would be that great companion camera, but the quality fell way short of my previous point and shoots (most recent a Nikon Cool Pix in the $150 range).

If you crave clarity and sharpness of your pictures, then the TL220 is not your camera for the price, hence the 2-star rating.

I returned this camera and picked up a Canon Powershot SX120 that has 2 fewer megapixels, no touch screen but much more control than the Samsung at $100 less on the price with significant improvement on picture quality.

Read Best Reviews of Samsung 12MP Dig Camera 4.6X Opt 3 In LCD Red Here

I had a Kodak point and shoot touch screen but had problems with the software and speed of the camera. I came across this camera in a Best Buy first-day-release display and was ready to buy from moment one.

Have you ever used your cell phone camera and you may have that small mirror little space for self-portraits? I'm using it all the time to now have great sized LCD in front is ideal. Friends are always making fun of my photos because I'm always trying to get in them but inevitably I've cut off a head or two.

PROS: The touchscreen is responsive and big, I be lovin' me the haptic feedback (which is also adjustable, yay). The next, and this was amazing to me, it has BUILT IN PHOTO EDITING SOFTWARE. Both on the camera AND when you plug it into your machine. It automatically launches and helps you manage the photos on ANY computer. It doesn't require ANY software install... I practically pee'd my pants when I saw this; why didn't someone think of this sooner? No worries about losing the disc, staying up to date, etc. Oy... brilliant.

The LCD screen also acts as the count-down timer when you take timer-shots with a tri-pod or however, nice add-in, however, the timer is not adjustable (10 seconds only).

CONS: First, when your taking self-shots people tend to stare at the LCD frame instead of in the lens, this causes two issues: 1) it looks like people aren't looking at the camera, and 2) the face detection technology uses an IR eye sensor, so if you don't look into the lens, it won't detect and lock onto the face. Second, I wish there were a one click, or one button activation of the LCD you have to go to the menu option, then select the LCD mode each time you turn the camera on annoying.

Third, I wish there were photo keyword tagging like I had on my Kodak this was INCREDIBLY, and unexpectedly, helpful when going on vacations, etc and taking hundreds on photos then uploading them to computer or Flickr and having them already tagged I smell firmware update :::ahem:::

Fourth, the memory card is a MICRO SD card, NOT a regular SD card. This A) means all your previous SD cards are incompatible and B) you cannot use the eye-fi wireless card now. I get why they went the Micro SD card route, because theoretically you can hot swap between your digital camera and a cell phone so that you can remote upload your photos but I'd rather have to use an adapter and have a regular SD card slot with more options bad move and was almost a deal breaker

Fifth, there's no quick way to delete a photo right after capturing it if you decide you don't want it. You have to hit the play button, then select delete, then confirm. What? Did someone say 'firmware update' :::cough cough:::

Sixth, speaking of egotistical... proprietary Samsung connector jack for charging/PC connecting. Why you gots to hate on the micro/mini-USB connector? The Kodak used the mini-USB and it was nice to be able to charge from my iGo, now iGo in sadness.

Seventh, and not too big of a deal, but I wish the playback volume/speaker for video was slightly louder. I'm not expecting Dolby Surround Sound here, but a little louder for the hearing impaired would be nice...

Eighth, I wish the connector jack was on the side and more so because I wish the camera could also function as a USB web-cam. I mean, I'm not in the porn business or anything, but it'd be nice to consolidate devices where possible, right?

Overall I'm incredibly pleased with the camera some major pros and excellent features I didn't go into detail on, but if you do a yahoo search for technical reviews, you may run into several features that you'll end up finding really useful.

Want Samsung 12MP Dig Camera 4.6X Opt 3 In LCD Red Discount?

Like many others I did my homework before purchasing this camara. I am going to Europe next week and I have owned 4 digital camaras previously.

THIS CAMARA IS SIMPLE "FANTASTIC" and I am trying to highlight it because I want you to know it.

The front viewer is the main reason I bought it. When you are under the Eifel tower with your baby you want a picture of the tower but you also want to be included in the picture, always one of us has to left out. NOT ANYMORE.

If you are a single mother, I am sure you want to be in the pictures with your son/daughter. GREAT way to do it. I turned on the shoot when smile feature and it just works beautifully.

I will try to answer a couple of questions I saw people posted in other reviews. Yes the camara uses micro SD and someone thought that was a problem because of adapters. Not sure why because the camara comes with a USB cable that one plugs into the PC and voila all the pictures are copied to the PC and you don't have to anything else.

It comes with Intelli-Studio software that it's very user friendly and allows you to do all the things that I normally did at Wallgreens kiosks like adding frames, text, turn into blank and white or sephia. You don't even need to install it. FANTASTIC is an understatement.

The zoom is better than most camaras 4.6 is great and the quality of the pictures is superb.

This is a camara for the casual user that likes to take pictures like a pro but doesn't have the time or the money to take classes.

For the guy who goes to bars and want to take pictures and expect them to come out OK; I turned the lights off in my studio, pointed and shooted to my face and the picture came out perfect.

This is something I will never do but if I ever need it, now I know I can do it.

I want to close this with my most sincere congratulation to the engineering team at SAMSUNG. You guys know what you are doing. Keep up the good work !!!

I still haven't take any video o played with all the features in the camara but in the time that I spent with it, I can only say "I am so glad I am taking it with me to Europe"