Samsung released their GALAXY Camera at IFA Berlin this week. It looks very sleek. Reading The Verge review it’s an Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) loaded digital camera that boast a 21x optical zoom, 16.3 megapixels, and a 4.8″ high pixel density screen. It’s also coming equipped with Wi-Fi, 4G, 3G, Bluetooth AND GPS. There’s 8GB of internal storage with a Micro SD slot for what will most likely be 32GB support.
Frankly, ever since smartphones came out this is essentially the device of what I wanted them to be. A bit bulky yes, but with such superior recording abilities than your average smartphone. If anything it will replace my iPod Touch.
For me, three things are what’s going to keep me from getting the Samsung GALAXY camera when it’s publicly available in the US:
Price. There’s a lot of tech crammed into this device and I can’t see this as being something relatively affordable. Samsung’s newest SMART Camera, the ST200, is roughly 2/3 the camera the GALAXY is spec’d to be. All I can say is, if the price is close to $300, it’s going to be really hard for me to say no.
Connectivity. The plethora of options for connectivity is great. I’m worried how the 4G and 3G are going to work out though. Will it work like Amazon’s Whispernet? Or will we have to pony up for data services from one of the telecoms? And how much will that cost and what would the data caps be? Will choosing a data plan be mandatory? If it is mandatory, I might skip this round.
Headphone Jack? As previously stated, I want move on from the iOS ecosystem and am willing to replace my iPod Touch with an Android device. There hasn’t been anything remotely compelling outside of the Android phones themselves to replace the iPod. Even some of the Samsung Galaxy Players, though new, are out of date with the OS two iterations out of date (Gingerbread!). The GALAXY Camera has a microphone jack but no headphone jack. If Samsung can make the mic jack do double duty and it works well, I will mostly likely chuck that iPod and the dreaded iTunes out of my life.
I know Samsung keeps saying it’s a camera first but if they pull this off, it’s so much more. Can’t wait for this product to come out this fall and see the reviews.
daveshortpants 