I own the Samsumg Digimax S800, which I’m guessing is the predecessor to this camera. It is a 8.1 megapixel camera, with 3X optical zoom, MPEG-4 movie clip, and a 2.4" LCD. I paid $174.98 on clearance at Target in May '07 (regular price $249.99). Most of the time, it takes excellent pictures for a point-and-shoot, pocket-size camera. No it cannot keep up with my brother’s Nikon D80 D-SLR, which is much, much more expensive.
My problem area has been with taking “quick” pictures - you see something happening and want to quickly snap the shot before it’s gone. Without allowing the time to push half-way down on the shutter button, and allowing it to focus properly, I tend to get blurry pictures.
As for taking multiple pictures in a row, the flash takes a brief second to recharge so there is definitely a lag for sports/action shots. There is a continuous shot mode, but it does not allow the flash to be on when in this mode.
Regarding the AA batteries, I love that it runs on these. I used to use regular Ni-Mh batteries, and they lasted much longer then alkaline. While buying this camera, there was a deal for $10 - $15 for a pair of Rayovac Hybrid Rechargeable Ni-Mh batteries - these are the best batteries I have ever owned. I charge them once every few MONTHS and get hundreds of pictures out of a single charge. I saw something similar at Costco over the weekend for $25 to $30. The advantage of AA’s is that if I don’t notice my batteries are low before walking out the door with the camera, or forget to take my charger on vacation, I can stop at nearly ANY store to pick up a pair of AA alkalines and get 100 or so pics out of those (on alkalines, this thing eats batteries).
If you’re aspiring to be Ansel Adams, you should already know that a camera at this price won’t cut it. Overall, I’d say this should be a great camera for the point-and-shoot set. I’m very happy with mine (S800) and recommending my sister-in-law to pick this one up for herself.
FYI - target.com has this camera new for $130 regular price, but on sale now for $120 plus shipping. 75 bucks shipped on woot is about 38% cheaper - seems like a fair discount for refurb.
I have the Samsung S730. 7.2mp, bought over a year ago for $100. Love it. Yes it uses AA, but I bought a set of Energizer rechargeables with a 15 minute charger. Always have batteries
I agree that they aren’t very good for a quick picture as the focus can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but since I like taking nature shots, speed isn’t much of a concern.
Well I bought one after looking at everything I could read on it (not much but the forums in DPREVIEW were a help). It looks like a decent but overlooked camera. No faults but just too much me too in a crowded market. The one thing that really did impress me other than the 5x zoom was the low light capability. I have a Fuji Finepix F31 and the capability to take pics at higher iso’s is very handy. From what I can see in one of the reviews this camera also has pretty good low light sensitivty without throwing out too much noise or loss of detail.
quote of the review: “However, as with the S850, it’s the misjudged automatic settings that take the shine off what would otherwise be an unbeatable camera.”
I’ve been trying to decide all day if I want to get this or not. I figured what the heck I really like the 5X too. I have a Nikon D300 and a small PnS Nikon S1 but the S1 while nice and small has pretty poor low light capability. For the money it’s hard not to give this a try. I don’t mind the AA batteries. I have plenty of rechargeable ones around. I even have an extra 2GB SD card from a previous woot
Thanks for posting the link to the pics, that helped me decide.
So i have been debating this one since about 8 this morning. I was looking for something a bit more expensive, around the 100-150 range, since i am just a point and shoot-er. I checked reviews all morning, and aside from the battery issue (AA’s) everything came back positive. I went to Target and checked it out, and its a great little camera, fairly small and light. I believe you cant beat the price, as the cheapest you can buy elsewhere (refurbished) is amazon for about 89.99, with ~10 bucks for shipping. I decided you cant beat it and ordered one. For those rare instances that i do need a camera, i believe this one will do just fine.
ON the samsung site there is a driver for win 98 and some software too. Not sure what the software is, most likely some sort of photo editing stuff. I use Photoshop so I won’t be trying it out myself.
It says it’s for the S850 but it looks like that is the same as the S85. Not sure what the difference is if any, I didn’t compare the specs that closely.
This looks like a good deal on a decent camera. After reading some more reviews on it I’m glad I went ahead and ordered me one. Now I just hope they’ll get it shipped in a timely fashion.
[QUOTE=garey, post:35, topic:169784]
… Now I just hope they’ll get it shipped in a timely fashion.
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The only time I had a long ship time from Woot is when they used Smartpost or whatever they call it. Took almost 3 weeks and the box looked like they kicked it along the street to my place
Mine came today. It seem to work just fine so far. It did come with the CD-ROM, cables and lanyard. The owners manual is not very good but if you read it it says details are in the PDF owners manual on the disk. Nice Woot
I have to push pretty hard to get the usb cable into the camera. I’m wondering if this is normal, or if something is bent in either the cable, or the port on the camera. Anyone else tried to hook it up to their pc yet???
