Samsung often gets a bit of a bad rap for being unoriginal, so much so that they recently lost over a billion dollars to Apple in their legal battle regarding copyright infringement. This time, though, it seems that Samsung has beaten everyone to the punch with its new Samsung Galaxy Camera.
The Galaxy Camera is a mix of portable Android media device and dedicated digital camera. From the front it looks like any old camera with its 21x zoom lens and chunky design. However, from the photographer’s viewpoint there’s a 4.8 inch HD SLCD multi-touch display running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
It’s a fairly novel idea and should appeal to both tech-junkies and non-smartphone owners alike. We can’t imagine someone going out and buying the Galaxy Camera as an alternative to a portable media device just because it has a killer camera. But we do foresee the Galaxy Camera beating out most of its dedicated digital camera competition with relative ease, assuming that Samsung can offer it at a competitive price.
The Samsung Galaxy Camera will be available in 3 versions: WiFi-only, 3G and 4G. All models will feature 8GB of internal storage and a MicroSD slot for further memory expansion.
Samsung has also made use of the super-thick space and thrown a quad-core 1.4GHz processor in there for good measure. We’re not too keen on that choice, as it’s likely to drive the price up without particular need. A dual-core would probably have handled just as well for the kind of things we foresee the Galaxy Camera being used for.
One thing we’re concerned about is the 1650mAh batter. Taking photos on a regular smartphone is an infamous battery-killer, as is using mobile broadband, be it over WiFi, 3G or 4G. As such we can’t see too much use for a media device/camera for people who are snapping off a lot of photos in a single day, such as tourists. We just can’t imagine a 1650mAh battery offering enough power to handle both media-related functionality and detailed image capture simultaneously.
No word on pricing just yet, but we can’t imagine this baby will come cheap. The combination of 4.8 inch HD display, quad-core CPU and powerful camera must surely make for a decently pricey device. Add on top of that the price of R&D for a completely new kind of product and you have a recipe for an expensive camera indeed.
Even so, we expect the Galaxy Camera to find its fair share of enthusiasts, so long as it takes decent photos. If nothing else, the digital camera market just got a serious makeover and we expect to see other camera manufacturers following suit in the near future.
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