Announced in May, the Digimax i5 is Samsung's smallest digital camera
and is housed in a stylish, stainless steel body that will be available
in silver, black, and red. The camera is about the same width (3.53")
and height (2.35") as a credit card and only .68" thick - or should I
say thin. Samsung has definitely designed the camera to be simple to
operate by reducing buttons and confusion on the camera body itself.
Out of the Box
Despite its diminutive size, the Samsung i5 is one solid camera and
feels great in the hand. The large 2.5" LCD display is huge, especially
when you consider that the entire camera is only 3.53"(w) x 2.35"(h).
The camera comes packaged with a compact docking station that is
designed to stay connected to your PC. When you place the Samsung i5 on
its cradle it automatically allows you to transfer your photos and
videos to your PC, while simultaneously charging the camera. The
docking base also has a connector for TV hookup. Both cables that
Samsung include with the Camera, the USB and the AV cable can be
connected directly to the camera for those times when you don't want to
take the docking base with you.
50MB Internal Memory
Unlike most manufacturers that typically supply a paltry 16MB memory
card, the Samsung i5 comes standard with 50MB of internal memory -
enough to hold twenty 5.0-megapixel images (Super fine mode), 39 in
Fine mode, 57 in normal mode, or up to 3 minutes, 38 seconds of
full-frame 640x480 MPEG-4 video. The advantage of having some internal
memory is that you'll always have it with you - assuming you don't
leave the camera behind. The camera also features a standard SD memory
expansion slot, which accepts larger memory card. SD Memory cards are
available in sizes of 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and even 2GB.
Layout and Design
The Samsung i5 has an overall height and width are not much larger than
a business card, which makes toting the camera around a pleasure. A
matter of fact, put the camera into the included pouch (which has an
integrated belt loop) and you'll truly forget that you're armed and
ready to go.
While the camera does feature plenty of scene modes, options, and
overrides, Samsung simplified the design by limiting the amount of
external controls. The i5 is housed in a stainless steel body and as
previously mentioned is available in silver, black, and red. The front
of the camera features just a sliding lens cover, which hides and
protects the lens, flash, and AF assist light when the camera is turned
off.
Features
SCENE MODES:
The Samsung i5 has a good selection of scene modes to satisfy most
every shooting situation. The only mode that Samsung neglected, and one
that I have never seen left out of a camera, is a "sport" mode. A
sports mode would force the camera to use a higher shutter speed in
order to help "freeze" faster action. Since the i5 lacks a sports mode
or any way to manually increase the shutter speed, the i5 is probably
not the camera to get if you take a lot of sports pictures.
MACRO MODE:
The Samsung i5 offers an excellent macro mode, actually three macro
modes. The Auto Macro Mode works automatically and allows the camera to
focus as close as 2" (5 cm) from the subject when the camera is at wide
angle or as close as 20" in the telephoto position. If you switch the
camera to Super Macro Mode the camera can then focus on subjects as
close as 0.39" from the lens. Super Macro Mode is superb at capturing
the finest details from subjects, even small ones such as coins,
jewelry, stamps, etc,. The standard Macro Mode is similar to Auto Macro
Mode in that the camera can focus as close as 2" from the lens. Unlike
the Auto Macro mode which automatically focuses from 2" to infinity,
the standard Macro Mode focuses from 2" to 20". While on the same
subject, the Super Macro Mode is used within the .39" to 2" range.
Conclusion
There is a lot to like about the Samsung i5 and a few things not to
like. The camera performed satisfactory under most lighting conditions,
but performance was only average. Start-up time was fairly quick at 2
seconds, but shot-to-shot times were very slow. Even in continuous
shooting mode the best I could achieve was 1.5 seconds between shots
and in this mode the screen goes completely dark while the camera
captures frame after frame. Since you can't see exactly what the camera
is capturing after you press the shutter release, the continuous
shooting mode is more pot-luck than anything else. In single-shot mode,
it took the camera about 2.5 seconds before it was ready to capture
another image. Shutter lag was almost a full second, a pretty slow time
when compared to other newer cameras in this class.
Now for the good news. The stainless steal body, sleek compact design,
internal 3x optical zoom lens, layout and overall feel, docking
station, rechargeable battery, 50MB of internal memory, integrated
lens/flash cover, large 2.5" TFT color LCD display, easy-to-navigate
menu system, and 30 fps MPEG-4 video mode with audio and zoom are
reasons to consider the Samsung i5. The camera also features a superb
super macro mode which should be considered if you often take pictures
of small objects (think ebay auctions). Long exposures (night mode)
seem to be one of the high points of the Samsung i5. A 12-second
exposure taken in a dimly lit room yielded bright, sharp, clean
results. This was very unexpected especially considering the camera
lacks a tripod mount - a necessity when shooting with long exposures.
To get around the lack of a tripod mount, use a bean bag or table along
with the self-timer to keep the camera steady when shooting.
The camera's large 2.5" TFT display was bright indoors and out,
although the LCD was not as visible when trying to frame scenes at
night. The camera slides into the docking base with the LCD facing the
front, making it a convenient way to do an informal slide show or
connect the docking station to a large screen TV for slideshows that
have impact.
If you're looking for a pocket-thin camera that balances features and
image quality, has very good slow-shutter (night) performance, and is
fun to use, then the Samsung i5 is a camera to consider.
