Samsung WB150F Review: The Secret Lies in Built-in Wifi and Photo Editing
Look, ma, no view finder! And the wifi is built INTO the camera! And the zoom is impossibly long!
Yeah. I think you can tell that I haven’t been in touch of the compact-camera scene for a while.
Samsung’s WB150F compact camera is physically beautiful, combining old-school detailing (especially around the lense) with modern black curves.
With 14.2 megapixels, a 18x, 24-432mm optically-stabilized lens, 720p HD video recording and a 3 inch LCD screen, it’s a small and sturdy camera. The WB150F certainly would do the job for anyone looking for a basic, daily-use camera.
Image Quality:
I was actually impressed by the image quality of the photos I took with WB150F, especially at night with high-exposure settings. Yes, there is grain, but it isn’t bad, all things considered.
Here are some shots I took in Rainbow. The first one was taken at dusk, and it was quite dark by the time I took the last one. No flash was used, though the photos were slightly edited.
You can view the rest of them here.
Amazingly enough, I liked the photos shot in bad light conditions more than the ones shot in optimal conditions:
Though the macro is quite excellent:
Usability:
This camera has built-in wifi, which is the coolest thing in the world for someone like me. It’s awesome being able to snap and share.
That aside, the usability was disappointing for me, especially since I’m already a Samsung user and I’m used to my Galaxy SII’s super efficiency and speed. The WB150F is slow. It takes too long to start up, too long to change the settings, and too long to save the images. Compacts need to be speedier.
Some settings and options are also are not as simple to find as they should be. The UX design seems raw and undesigned in some user flows (especially wifi upload). Samsung usually have a good eye for detail, and I found myself disappointed at design of UX.
Here’s a video of the wifi’s userflow (in Korean!):
Samsung WB150F Facebook upload movie from POPCO.NET on Vimeo.
The camera though does come with its own built-in editing software, and as gimmicky as photo editing software is, I have to admit that it’s pretty cool, especially for the average user.
The bottom line: if you don’t want an artsy-fartsy camera, but instead a snappy point-and-shoot to take pictures of your kids and friends, then the WB150F is for you. It is easy to use, the image quality is good, and it comes with enough cool things to make it at least an interesting investment.
Korean Cultural Experience | And Far Away
October 17, 2012 @ 9:46 am
[...] serving as a judge in Samsung’s WOW Traveler MENA competition, I packed a small bag, a camera, my phone, and then boarded a plane to Seoul, the capital of South Korea and the HQ of Samsung. [...]