Walt Mossberg tries out a new pocket-size digital camera from Samsung with some of the wireless convenience of a smartphone. The Samsung SH100 has built-in Wi-Fi, which allows it to rapidly upload or email pictures and beam photos wirelessly to a PC.
Now, Samsung has introduced a pocket camera that aims to erode the advantages of smartphones—even though the company also produces phones. This new camera, the SH100, has Wi-Fi built in. This isn't the first camera with built-in Wi-Fi, but Samsung hopes to better capitalize on it. It also competes with the add-on memory card called Eye-Fi, that brings Wi-Fi abilities to almost any camera. It has easy, preconfigured uploading to Facebook, YouTube, Picasa, email and other online destinations, plus a bunch of added wireless features, including cordless transfer of photos to a PC.I've been testing the SH100. It carries a list price of $200 without a memory card but can be found at various merchants for as little as $150. Its wireless capability requires no contract or monthly payment.
My verdict is that the SH100 pretty much does what it promises as a wireless device, and takes very good photos and videos. Unlike on a cellphone, its wireless functions don't work almost everywhere. Still, for those who would like some of the wireless ease of a phone in a better camera, it might be tempting.
The SH100 is a good-looking, pocket camera with a resolution of 14.2 megapixels, a 5x optical zoom and a wide-angle lens. Smartphones typically have much lower resolution and lack optical zoom lenses.
It has a large, 3-inch touch screen on the back, for framing and viewing shots, and for controlling its many functions. There are only four physical buttons—a home button, a power button, a playback button, and a combination shutter and zoom controller. Everything else is controlled by tapping on icons and menus on the screen.
