Displays

Record Review

The pre production unit of the NX10 that we've got doesn't offer any options for record review (it doesn't, for example, change to match the currently selected playback style), though you can adjust the amount of time it's displayed for. One issue we're sincerely hoping Samsung fixes in the final firmware is that the instant review image is such low resolution that it's totally useless for assessing sharpness (you really can't tell whether the shot is in focus, shaken or sharp). The only answer is to switch to playback mode, which kind of makes the existence of a record review somewhat pointless.

Apologies for the rather poor quality of the screenshots in this and other sections of this preview: the NX10 doesn't allow photography (or menu access) when anything is attached to the AV or HDMI ports, so these were all photographed directly off the back of the camera.

Playback

Display modes

The NX10 offers three playback options: Full screen image with basic shooting information, full screen image with detailed shooting information overlay and a smaller image with RGBY histograms and shooting details.

1. Full screen image with basic shooting information.	2. Full screen image with information overlaid
3: Small image, shooting information and R,G,B and Luminance histograms

Play magnification

In play mode the command dial is used to change the magnification (up to 7.2x in 11 steps) and the arrow keys to scroll around the magnified image. You cannot magnify raw images at all (and in the firmware version we're using shooting raw+JPEG produces two discretely numbered files, making playback somewhat laborious - we're hoping this is fixed in the final version).

Play thumbnail index

Press the drive button to switch to thumbnail index views, there are three different index views; 12 images (3x4), 20 images (5x4) and a simple 'film strip' that shows three images on a single screen. In all cases you can use what Samsung somewhat misleadingly calls 'Smart Albums' - this simply sorts the images by date (day or week) or type. This is useful if you want to view all your movies without scrolling through lots of images too, but it seems to be something of a missed opportunity when compared to the fancy filtering options (such as face recognition) found in some of the newer compact cameras - you can't even jump from one category to another, it just puts the files in a different order.

Image Editing

The NX10 offers a range of Picture Edit options for saved photos, including preset color styles, red-eye removal, back light compensation, resizing/rotating and 'face retouching' (skin softening).

You can apply these edits to JPEG or raw files, which is strange as it provides a function - converting raw to JPEG in-camera - that's not available anywhere else on the NX10. Of course being tied to these 'effects' means you can't actually convert raws without changing something (though if you fix red-eye and there's nothing to fix that's more or less what you get). I'd hope Samsung adds a more obvious (and more sophisticated) in-camera raw conversion option in a future firmware update as it seems a waste to only offer it here.