Samsung S860 review

Having used analogue SLRs in the past and done a little darkroom work even, these days I confine my creative urge mainly to digital capture, composition and touch-up. So while not a pro, I've been a dabbler/enthusiast long enough to know my own mind when it comes to imaging pros & cons.

My digicam learning curve has been mainly with Canon gear, starting with an A5 early on, then a number of successors and other models since, recently settling for an A720is. Then for the past couple of years I've also had a simple point-and-shoot model for daily use, taking my main cameras only on trips and planned events.

I suspect many will be doing something similar.

My snapshot model has been a Nikon L10 and while it was making a fair job of its limited brief, now it was time to move on. Naturally I looked at the L16/18 as a replacement, alas, in most of the reviews I found, these successors weren't exactly drowning in accolades! So maybe the L-series Nikons had run their course for sensor size and pixel density?

Now a while back, I remember someone saying that I should seriously look at the Samsung gear - it may have been in relation to a hard drive or something. 'They are really trying now, while others are trading on their reputation, with what is after all coming out of China anyway' - or words to that effect. Hmm...

So while I admit to rather 'being seen' with a Nikon than a Samsung, I started looking at options which quite frankly hadn't existed for me previously. I found some good things said about the S85 but precious little (certainly no digicam site reviews) about the model which sort of caught my eye, the Samsung S860. Maybe that's why I decided to pen my own?

Ok, so I ended up buying an S860. Sometimes you've just got to buck the norm in your life, right? That's despite the salesman imploring me to 'trust the Nikon marque' etc, as he'd done (and I'd done no less) previously!

You can get these things in all kinds of eye candy, but I went for the black. I'd heard that the model has a cheap feel to it, but it feels pretty chunky and solid to me.

In the end however, it's all about image quality, right?!

While the S860 doesn't quite match the 720is, the results are more than just ok, they're quite good, dammit! It also has the best VGA movie mode I've seen in a consumer still model (including digic IIIs), with optical zoom available and the ability to pause recording. I know people who run script hacks on their dress-circle digicams to get such functionality.

Problems:

Yes, it does tend to eat batteries and as it lacks an optical viewfinder, that's probably its greatest single failing, but then it does have a focus assist lamp for low light. You can also play with iso settings and white balance and then there's the option of full manual control in a beginners' model! Arguably, with only two F-stops, it's more like aperture priority, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right... plus i love that it doesn't use the digicam protocol for picture downloads, but behaves like a generic portable (drag & drop) device, so you can use it to carry data as well.

I'm not going to bore you with any other specs, nor claim miraculous intervention. For a snapshooter I do miss the optical viewfinder but I ask you, what more should we be expecting in a $100 camera in 2008 money!

All in all, I can recommend this unit for a snapshooter with very little reservation...