Samsung S1050 and S850 First Impressions Review

by Emily Raymond
Published on January 10, 2007

Navigation
Intro	Physical Tour
Components	Design / Layout
Modes	Control Options
Image Parameters	Connectivity / Extras
Overall Impressions	Conclusion

Picture Quality / Size Options
The Samsung digital cameras are equipped with a 1/1.8-inch CCD, but different amounts of resolution are available on it. The Samsung S1050 has 10.1 megapixels and the S850 has 8.1 megapixels. The Samsung S1050 has the following options within its “+/-“ menu: 10M, 9M (3:2), 7M, 6M (W), 5M, 3M, and 1M. In the same menu are the following compressions: TIFF, SuperFine, Fine, and Normal. All consumer compact digital cameras have JPEG files, but not very many support the larger TIFF file anymore. This type of file isn’t as compressed as JPEG, allowing for more editing in software later.

Picture Effects Mode
The Samsung S1050 and S850 have more picture effects than most digital cameras. The number of effects and color modes is comparable with Canon PowerShot’s My Colors mode. The following menu is available by pushing the designated “E” (effects) button.

Color	Normal, Black & White, Sepia, Red, Green, Blue
Special Color	Off, On (circle of color in center of black-and-white frame)
Image Adjust	Off, +1, -1 (didn’t work on pre-production model)
fUN	Off, Word Bubbles (9 different templates to make cartoons), Highlight (softens background around subject), Split Frames (4 templates), Frames (9 of them)

There are a few more picture effects in the recording menu (confusing to find them in two places, isn’t it?). The Sharpness can be set to Soft +, Soft, Normal, Vivid, and Vivid + while the Contrast can be set to High, Normal, or Low. Almost all of the effects worked on the pre-production models. The Special Color mode was interesting, but not very useful. It kept a circle equivalent to about a sixth of the area in the frame brightly colored while the rest of the frame was black and white. The Word Bubbles will keep kids and teens busy for hours creating cartoons for their MySpace pages. The Highlight feature outlined subjects, but didn’t soften the background like it was supposed to. This is probably another result of the pre-production model. The Split Frames feature had four templates and looked much like what spits out of a photo machine at a carnival – the ones where everyone makes funny faces. The Frames mode simply superimposes tacky frames, wigs, etc directly on a photo.