Samsung G800 Camera Phone Review

Permalink: Samsung G800 Camera Phone Review by Franz Bicar

The Samsung G800 3G HSDPA slider phone is the first 5-megapixel camera phone released by Samsung that features an optical zoom. Most camera phone in the market today only features a digital zoom which is a whole lot different than an optical zoom. The difference between the two is that they work in radically different ways and yield radically different results. In general, optical zoom will always yield a far superior image than digital zoom.

A digital camera that offers optical zoom works the same way as a zoom lens on a traditional camera. A traditional lens works by collecting light rays and projecting them onto a piece of film, or in the case of a digital camera, onto the sensor.

Unlike optical zoom, digital zoom works by scaling up the pixels in the final image after it is captured. This is very similar to cropping and resizing your picture in your favorite paint program, except that the camera does it for you.

Given that, you the readers, now have a general idea of what is this optical zoom I’m talking about and why this phone from Samsung is given all the hype. That and its key features which include the 5 MP camera with 3x optical zoom, 3G and HSDPA (supports up to 7.2 Mbps download speeds), is what we are dealing with in this article.

Generally, the G800’s camera is a lot similar in quality to the Samsung G600 phone. But before going into the details, let’s have a quick look at the phone’s physical structure and design.

The G800 is a chunky phone. At 18.8 mm in thickness, you can even say its too ugly for a modern phone. When manufacturers like Sony Ericsson, Nokia and even Apple (especially Apple) are going for a slimmer designs, Samsung went out of its trademark (that of producing super-slim handsets) and made a phone such as this. The back and sides of the G800 are plastic, the front is metal. The G800 weighs 129 g - a heavy monster but on the other hand, it gives the phone a quality and solid feel.

Sliding the front panel, you get the phone’s keypad. The keys are wide and easy to press. Its 2.4-inch screen can display 262k colour at 240 x 320 resolution. The display is excellent and outputs bright and vivid colors. In addition, the front panel features the large navigation button, call, end, cancel and selection keys.

Left side of the phone features the microSD slot, multi-function jack and lanyard eyelet. Right side features the volume keys and camera/application switch key.

The 5 MP camera with 3x optical zoom is located at the back. It is covered by a lens cover which you can slide open when you want to use the camera. The Xenon flash sits above the camera lens and you have the speakers on top.

Another feature advertised by Samsung is the 3G and HSDPA capability of this phone. It was released as a phone that can support speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps for its HSDPA (3.5G). This is a very interesting claim as current phones only support up to 3.6 Mbps download speeds.

With this speed, using the 2.4-inch screen in browsing the web is a pleasure.

Now lets go to the G800’s main feature, the 5-megapixel camera. As mentioned, the G800 sports a 5 MP camera with 3x optical zoom, Xenon flash, autofocus, macro mode and 4x digital zoom. Camera options include: shooting mode, image size, macro mode, flash, timer, face detection, scenes, effects, exposure meter, shooting mode, ISO (up to 400), anti-shake, extended digital zoom, wide dynamic range (WDR), image quality and more.

As mentioned, the G800, given that it is a much more advanced (supposed to be) camera than the G600, surprisingly has almost the same, if not the same then almost similar, to the images of the G600.

Given the same fair/ideal conditions, the pictures are very similar. Of course, the G800 now has a superior flash as it boasts of a built-in xenon flash while the G600 only has the low-end LED flash, so it will matter if you compare shots in the dark.

As a camcorder, the video quality is ok. In fact, it is better than mos other mobile phones out there. It can support 320 x 240 pixels at 15 fps. The G600 has 640 x 480 at 15 fps video capture.

Going forward, the G800 also have a built-in media player that supports formats such as MP3, MIDI, ACC, ACC+, e-AAC+, and WMA. Other features for this phone include a video player, video calling, FM radio, document viewer, RSS feed reader, voice recorder, Web browser, PIM applications: tasks, calculator, world clock, converter, stopwatch, SIM application toolkit, and TV-out.

Overall, the G800 is a fine phone. It has most of the features that one would want in a do-it-all handset. Other than the fact that it does not have features such as GPS or Wi-Fi, but it still is a pretty solid phone.

Sources:
http://www.letsgodigital.org
http://www.letsgomobile.org
http://www.phonearena.com