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4/14/2011

Reviews Samsung ST80

The $249.99 (list) 14.2-megapixel Samsung ST80 creates a convincing box for Wi-Fi in a digital camera . Thanks to its built-in Wi-Fi, you can simply e-mail photos or upload them to your Facebook print albums
when you’re nearby a Wi-Fi hotspot. But the ST80 doesn’t offer visual picture stabilization—an ever-present underline in cameras in this cost range. This can meant becloud photos when sharpened high-speed or low-light images. But if you’re sharpened in great lighting, images from the ST80 are surprisingly sharp.

Design and Interface
One of the not as big condensed cameras you can buy, the ST80 is similar to the minuscule Canon PowerShot HS 300 ($249.99, 4 stars). Measuring 2.2 by 3.6 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighing usually 4.3 ounces, this camera fits simply in your pocket, but its all-plastic building creates it feels flimsy. Most of the camera’s functions are tranquil by the hold shade on the back, and you’ll have no complaint reckoning out what any earthy manage does; there are usually three: Power and Playback buttons, and a wizz trigger.

Most condensed digital cameras use a few form automatic picture stabilization—where possibly the lens or the picture sensor shifts to help lower blur. Not the ST80, and without it, you’ll have to use a faster shiver or aloft ISO surroundings to obtain great results when sharpened in low-light settings. The ST80 offers 3x visual wizz around a f/3-f/5.6, 35-105mm (35mm equivalent) lens. It’s not a quite wide-angled, long-reaching, or swift lens for any category of camera.

Despite a good-size 230K-dot 3-inch LCD, framing cinema feels really cramped. The LCD has a 16:9 aspect ratio, but the camera’s sensor has a 4:3 aspect ratio; if you’re sharpened at full resolution, the camera shrinks the on-screen picture to a pillar-boxed 2.5 inches. To compare, the low-cost General Electric E1480W ($169.99, 3 stars) offer a 3-inch LCD with a 4:3 aspect proportion so you can support and examination shots using the whole LCD.

The touch-based user interface on the ST80 feels poignant and intuitive, but is paltry since the average LCD, that is a resistive hold screen, not capacitive one similar to you’ll find on the Bloggie Touch slot camcorder ($199.99, 4 stars). The resistive manifestation doesn’t feel as accurate, and requires a small more pressure—turning the spark on and off, for example, isn’t difficult, but typing in e-mail addresses is frustrating. The Editors’ Choice Samsung TL225 ($349.99, 4 stars) offers the same UI, but it’s presented on a larger, higher-resolution (3.5-inch, 1.04-million-dot) LCD.

Other Features
One of the features that indeed sets this camera detached is its aptitude to e-mail and upload photos wirelessly. The camera has an residence book so you can come in and store contacts. The underline is elementary to use, but you can usually send one print at a time, and you can’t send files in their full resolution; instead they’re sent as 1.9-megapixel files (1600 by 1200 resolution).You can moreover upload images to Picasa, Facebook, PhotoBucket, and Samsung Imaging. The Facebook experience functions well with photos—you can login, emanate an manuscript and upload multi-part images to that album, and you can even crop all of your Facebook albums (not just the ones uploaded from the ST80).

The ST80 can moreover be used as a DLNA media server; when related to a Wi-Fi network, gadgets that can deed as DLNA customers (Sony’s PlayStation 3, and a few HDTVs and Blu-ray players)can perspective cinema and videos from ST80 wirelessly, or even download the files right away to local storage. The arriving Samsung SH100 will liner with an app and a Windows focus that will automatically collect all your new photos when your P.C. and camera are on the same network. If you do not wish to wait for and wish a easier wireless solution, ponder an Eye-Fi card, an SD card with built-in Wi-Fi that can automatically backup your cinema when on your home Wi-Fi network.

Performance

The ST80 isn’t quite fast. The camera can beginning up and fire in an average of 3.1 seconds, once on, it averages 3.8 seconds between shots. The comparably labelled Canon PowerShot HS300 shaves a second or more off any these times—it booted up and took a picture in an average of 2 seconds, with 2.2 seconds between shots.

In the Personal Computer Labs, you use Imatest to collect design data about picture quality. In our tests, the ST80′s photos were really sharp; the camera offering an glorious center-weighted average of 2,053 lines per picture height. That even outperformed the much-pricier Editors’ Choice Canon PowerShot S95 ($399.99, 4 stars), that prisoner a center-weighted average of 1,858 lines per picture height. Like the Canon S95, the ST80 may be pushed all the way up to ISO 1600 to collect more light without producing as well sufficient noise. Imatest deliberate reduction than 1.5 percent sound up to ISO 1600, that is a great result.Video available by the ST80 can attain up to 720p fortitude (1280-by-720 at 30 frames per second.) It sounds good, but there are caveats. You can use the visual zoom, but the audio is cut out whilst zooming to prevent capturing deafening sound from the lens motor. The camera moreover doesn’t refocus whilst recording video, expected because you’ll moreover takeover sound from the lens. While the ST80 can record high-definition videos, they can’t be wirelessly uploaded in HD or even 640-by-480 typical definition. The ST80 uploads usually 320-by-240 QVGA-quality videos and usually to YouTube, not Facebook.

The ST80 has a singular port. Using the enclosed exclusive line you can block the camera in to the enclosed wall horse or a USB dock on a P.C. to give your images. Many other condensed cameras offer noteworthy mini-USB and mini-HDMI ports. Also different many cameras, the ST80 writes to microSD cards, not standard-size SD, so your SDHC card reader won’t help you prevent joining the camera around a line unless you have a microSD adapter.

If you really need a way to send or upload photos to Facebook right from your camera, the Samsung ST80 might be a great fit for you. But the insufficient of picture stabilization is a big disastrous in a $250 camera. If you wish to increase Wi-Fi features to your stream camera, examine an Eye-Fi card. If you wish something a small more arguable with visual picture stabilization is to same price, give the Canon PowerShot HS 300 a try. The ST80 produces pointy images in splendid light and has a few innovative features, but it comes with a few flaws that are difficult to ignore.
   

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