Samsung NX1000 Digital Camera Review

Handling

The Samsung NX1000, like most cameras in its class, features just a plastic protruding grip on the right side of the body. The grip is textured, along with a small patch on the back of the camera designed for the thumb to rest on. These provide just enough grip to keep hold of the camera, but they're hardly comfortable or plush.

The NX1000 doesn't offer much in the way to cope with extreme lighting conditions where the rear display might be less usable. Without an articulating display or electronic viewfinder, you're in a tough spot when you have to take a shot and the screen gets washed out. It also makes handling for video shooting (or when shooting at a high or low angle) quite difficult. While not universal, certainly, articulating displays have made their way into competing cameras in this price range.

Buttons & Dials

The buttons on the Samsung NX1000 are a bit of a mixed bag. Like most entry-level interchangeable lens cameras the body is mostly made of plastic, and the buttons are mostly set into the plastic flush with the body. They're a little tougher to press than some of the controls on other cameras as a result. This goes for the four rear buttons (outside of the control dial), as well as the smart link button on top.

The NX1000's control dial, however, makes up for the other control buttons, with just the right level of resistance. This makes it easy to adjust a control by just a single notch, while the dial is still loose enough to rotate almost all the way around when you want to make larger changes. The control dial also doubles as a four-way control pad with a center "OK" button. The four-way controls are all much easier to press, offering a nice haptic response when engaged.

Display(s)

The rear monitor on the NX1000 is a high-resolution (921k) TFT-LCD display. It's a bit of a step down from the OLED displays on some of Samsung's higher end cameras, but it's functional in most situations. It's not quite as bright, though, and we found it getting washed out on sunnier days. Without a viewfinder or the ability to articulate the display, this can make taking pictures very difficult at times outdoors.