The new Samsung SH100 compact camera offers Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing you to send images and videos via email to Facebook, Samsung Imaging, Google Picasa (not Flickr though), YouTube and Photobucket directly.
The camera is also DLNA compatible; it can act as a media server and play back videos and images on Windows PCs. Getting this feature to work is tricky, and sending files over the AllShare app on the SH100 suffers from a lack of feedback from the camera. However, it works reasonably well with Windows 7 computers and DLNA-ready TVs.
The wireless has limitations, however. Apparently, an app on Samsung Galaxy tablets or phones can remotely control the SH100; not so with the otherwise useful Samsung Intelli-Studio Light software for Windows. Nor can you print over wireless.
The SH100 also downsizes images to 1,600 by 1,200 pixels before sending them, and you can’t change this in-camera.
A final word of caution: while the Facebook integration works well, I wouldn’t want to lose the SH100 with my user name and password stored on it. The same goes for the email feature, as it allows anyone to send anything to anyone. Surprisingly enough, Samsung doesn’t provide the ability to password protect the SH100 to prevent misuse.
As a still camera, the SH100 delivers good results. The CCD sensor is small at 1/2.33 inches and 14MP is a great deal to cram into it, but nevertheless, images come out sharp and with good colour as long as the ISO is kept low. There’s noise at all ISO levels, but above 400 it becomes quite pronounced. Image contrast is a bit flat too, but this is easy to remedy in software.
A 5x optical zoom and digital image stabilisation help you take great shots. The overall performance of the camera helps too: it’s quick to wake up, auto-focus and save images to its MicroSD card. While the SH100 has a Program mode, there’s no reason to take the camera out of the rather good Auto mode for day to day snapping. I only did it to manually set ISO levels to keep image noise down.
For those so inclined, the SH100 comes with the usual assortment of scene modes to help out with tricky exposure situations, and effects for still and video shooting. Despite being a truly compact camera, the SH100 is fine to use with big hands. The controls are where you’d expect, although the somewhat-wobbly zoom rocker switch could be bigger and sturdier. Otherwise, you access the SH100’s many features via the 3-inch LCD touch screen.
The touch screen isn’t the best in the business unfortunately. It can be hard to see outdoors and you have to give it a firm press to select and activate things. Pressing the screen with your fingers works but tries your patience, so use the supplied stylus instead. It’s better to use the shutter button rather than the screen to take pictures, as the firm screen press required induces camera shake.
Battery life is adequate considering the small size of the SH100, and you can expect two to three hours of continuous use between charges. Samsung’s managed to squeeze great features and good image quality into a very compact package with the SH100, and the Wi-Fi functionality makes it stand out among the competition.