Product Review: Samsung NV100HD Digital Camera

For the longest time, consumers had to choose between a point and shoot digital camera lacking features or an expensive DSLR camera out of the price or size range that most consumers were willing to spend. Now, several years later, this is ending.

Samsung's newest digital camera, the NV100HD, is a 'point and shoot' in the traditional sense, but pushes the limits to the extreme. Coming in a compact size that isn't found amongst it's larger prosumer and DSLR brethren, this small camera has all the features an advanced 'average' user will need.

If you're looking for a compact camera with a price less than $400 but with more features than the average P&S camera offers, this may be the camera for you. Read on to see if this camera can live up to the high standards it has set for itself.

Features

The Samsung NV100HD sports 14.7 megapixels, offering poster-sized prints at full resolution. The lens is a 28mm wide-angle, allowing you to capture a lot of detail in one photo. The display is a touchscreen LCD, which means finger prints will be over the display, and you won't be able to make any manual adjustments while having a shot lined up.

One of the best features of this digital camera is it's high definition video recording feature. At nearly 15 megapixels, the 1280 x 720 video resolution looks fantastically sharp and bright. The camera can only record the footage at 30fps, but the two image stabilizers make sure there is no bending or jumping when filming fast objects, such as cars and sports.

In addition to the features above, Samsung has also thrown in face and blink detection, meaning every portrait will come out ideal, with the correct part of the photo in focus. Another cool feature is smile mode, and skin mode - smile mode will detect a smile, which skin mode will touch-up the skin of a subject and make it look smoother and brighter.

The camera uses a rechargeable battery, so there's no AA and external chargers to deal with.

Body

The body of the NV100HD is sleek and thin. Most of the back of the camera is taken by the huge LCD, with only two buttons on the back: zoom, menu, and picture review buttons.

The casing is very thin - the microphone is located on the side of the camera, and the storage slot on the bottom. There's a mode dial on the top near the power and shutter buttons. This camera, because of it's thin body, won't be ideal for any extreme sports, hiking, or similar rough activities where it may get dropped or jostled.

The lens physically zooms out of the body, and doubles the width when fully extended.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a point and shoot camera that has a nice set of features, including HD video recording and high megapixels, this camera is a good choice. This won't work for professional shots, and won't make a good backup for a high-action situation due to it's thin body. This camera is ideal for anyone looking for a device that can be slipped into a pocket but that still produces amazing results.