Samsung Digimax i5 Digital Camera
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You’ve heard of a tablet PC – well meet the tablet Digicam – Samsung’s Digimax i5 might look like an enlarged Anadin Extra, but don't expect it to relief your headache, after a week with this rascal we needed to seek something stronger than a pill.... Design |
| My initial thought about the Digimax i5’s design was that it looks like an Anadin extra, only a little larger. Its curvaceous metal design is attractive, with a polished metal finish. It is available in three colours, silver, red (which they call wine) and black. The silver one that we tested has a titanium coloured strip that runs through the centre of the camera, like cream in a cake, keeping in line with the 17.3 mm ultra-thin, contemporary design. On the front of the camera there is a duplicated shape to the outline of the camera, this houses the F3.5-4.5 3x optical zoom lens, flash, AF assist lamp; this also doubles up as the self-timer indicator. The sliding lens design leaves nothing to protrude from the body of the camera, making it perfect for letting the kids loose without too much risk of damage. Turning the camera around, you’ll find a zoom rocker at the top right, just underneath is the recording mode button, next down is for playback mode and to the lower-right of that is the four-way controller, which is used for navigation and most other demands. The final button is used to delete photos and control manual exposure. The buttons are nicely spread out and easy to use, but that doesn’t mean to say that Samsung haven’t left enough room for the 2.5” LCD with 230,000 pixels. On the top you’ll find a microphone and speaker, and buttons for safety flash, power and shutter release. Both ends of the camera have nothing to mention, apart from a place to attach the safety strap. The bottom of the camera is where all the fun is, sporting a battery compartment, SD/MMC card slot and dock connector, which can connect to the AV power and USB. A rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery is included. |
| Features |
| The two main features, and subsequent selling points, that the Digimax i5 boasts are its 5-megapixels and its 50MB of internal memory. It is so rare to find a digicam today that offers internal memory, so we were nicely surprised. Another feature that Samsung are proud of is the Safety Flash – this is used when a normal flash is not convenient. However, it really does just act as a high sensitivity mode and isn’t particularly useful in most situations. The flash itself works at a generous range of 0.2-2.4m. The voice record feature allows you to record up to an hour of audio, and you can use the voice memo feature to add a 10 second voice caption to each photo. The Digimax i5 also uses MPEG4, the high-compression, high quality video format. Samsung have included 3 types of software. Firstly there is the digimax viewer, which allows you to rotate, resize and email. Next up is the ArcSoft PhotoImpression 4, which does everything you need in a slightly dated way. Lastly, you get the Digimax Reader for reading text that you have taken photos of using the text mode. Macsters will be disappointed to find that you only get QuickTime OS 9 or you can choose to use iPhoto, which works fine. The menus are rather different in that they move sideways like a Mac rather than downwards like a PC and can get very frustrating to use. |
| Performance |
| The Samsung Digimax i5’s performance was extremely varied. We liked many things and found other areas that really disappointed us. Power-up-to-shoot time was 1.9 seconds, which is average and the 1.5 seconds shot-to-shot time was good. However, the frustratingly long shutter-lag was testing, sometimes missing the shot we were after. When you have taken a photo you don’t have the option of deleting it immediately, you have to go into playback mode, this is again time consuming and very inconvenient. The camera struggled to focus in dim light and often we found ourselves waiting to get anything worthwhile. Impaired lighting was also a test for the LCD screen; it really struggled in dimly lit conditions and provided a bad performance. On the other hand movie making was good fun, we really liked how you can use the zoom when shooting. Beware of putting your hand over the microphone when shooting though; this was something we did without realising. The battery put on an average show; we got 173 photos out of it whereas we managed 400 photos out of a Casio a few days earlier. The battery takes approximately 150 minutes to charge using the supplied AC charger. As for the all-important picture quality we must admit we were only semi-impressed. Our 6x4 prints were clear and sharp with some really strong colours, but we did notice the red to be slightly orange and some greens to be a bit bluer than they should be – however, to the untrained eye they looked okay. Unfortunately we are going to have to finish with one last moan, and that is about how susceptible to scratches the Digimax i5 is. Our advice would be keep it covered up whenever possible if you want to keep it looking pretty. |
| What's In The Box? |
| · The 5.0 effective Megapixel Samsung Digimax i5 digital camera · SLB-0737 lithium-ion rechargeable battery · AC adapter / battery charger · Camera cradle · Wrist strap · Soft case · USB cable · A/V cable · CD-ROM featuring Digimax Viewer and Reader, ArcSoft PhotoImpression, XviD codec, and USB drivers · 142 page camera manual (printed) + software manual (on CD-ROM) |
| Overall Opinion |
| It is such a shame that this good looking camera has let us down in so many areas. It started off on a good foot by offering 5-megapixels and 50MB internal memory, but these are worthless if the LCD doesn’t perform and the battery isn’t much good. For £100 the Samsung Digimax i5 is an average performer but it hasn’t got that certain amount of flair that we look for in order to recommend it to others. Why not check out other better performers for a similar price? |
| By Lisa Malyon |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Compact, stylish design 50MB internal Memory 5-megapixels 2.5” LCD | LCD doesn’t perform well Lacks a tripod mount Frustrating menu system Badly placed microphone Poor battery-life |
| Factor | Rating |
|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 2/5 |
| Durability | 2/5 |
| Style | 3/5 |
| Service & Support | 3/5 |
| Value for Money | 2/5 |
| Recommend | 0/5 |
| Overall | 2/5 |