Samsung HZ15W

Handling (7.50)

Samsung has liberally cribbed from Panasonic’s design book: the HZ15W looks almost identical to Panasonic’s popular TZ5 model. It’s a very functional design, and while hardly original, it does the job very well.

Compared to a point-and-shoot with a less mammoth zoom, the HZ15W seems on the chunky size. However, when you consider that a couple of years ago a 10x zoom camera would be SLR-like in shape and size, this camera seems petite by comparison. The HZ15W is a bit big, and a bit heavy, and it won’t fit into a tight set of pockets. If you’re wearing a coat, or want to throw it into a purse or bag, though, it’ll do just fine.

Buttons & Dials (8.25)

The buttons and dials are all well crafted, with a pleasant tactility, and all are positioned so that you’re unlikely to hit the wrong one. The one minor issue we had was the multiple paths to get to menus. The quick menu for most commonly changed options is accessed via the Fn button (which is short for Function; the main menu is accessed via the Menu/OK button at the center of the four-way pad; and to change shooting effects the E button is used. This system just feels like it could be more centralized.

Menus (5.50)

Apart from the above mentioned issue of the menus being split into too many sections, we were pleased with the menu system. In general they’re laid out well, with clear text and flow in a logical order. While some of them do go on a bit past a single page of options, they’re not much longer than that.

Manual & Learning (3.50)

The HZ15W manual isn’t bad, but it’s hardly great. The illustrations are good, as is the layout. However, it skimps a bit on explaining concepts, so it doesn’t always give as much detail as we’d like. The table of contents is all-encompassing, but laid out in manner that assumes some familiarity with the camera already. There is no index, which is a major black mark against the manual, and makes it very hard to track down certain information without poring over the table of contents in fine detail.