Samsung TL34HD Digital Camera Review

Samsung TL34HD

Digital Camera Review

Sep 26, 2008 - By Richard Baguley
2.4 The Samsung TL34HD (or the NV100HD as it is known outside of the USA) is the new flagship of Samsung's point and shoot lineup, with 14.6-megapixel resolution and a large 3-inch touch screen LCD. And it looks like it could be a flagship performer; apart from a few handling quirks, we found lots to like in this pocket-sized point and shoot.
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Samsung TL34HD

Viewfinder
The TL34HD has no viewfinder; everything is done through the 3-inch LCD screen.

LCD Screen
Because pretty much everything goes through the LCD screen, it is important that it works well. Fortunately, it seems to do so; the 3-inch screen is very clear and bright. With 460,000 pixels, it is not the sharpest we have seen, but it is very acceptable, with enough sharpness to accurately judge if a photo is in focus. The screen is a touch screen, and we found that it had decent accuracy. We were able to hit buttons on the screen and move sliders without any major issues.


The LCD screen of the TL34HD is the main interface to
control the camera
Flash
When needed, the flash of the TL34HD pops up from the top of the camera. When it is not needed, it fits right inside the case; there is nothing that is popping out that is likely to get caught or torn off. We weren't able to do much testing on the flash, but it is a little close to the lens, which might cause some issues with red eye. However, the camera offers both a series of pre-flashes and post-processing that can make your children and pets looks slightly less like they were possessed by Satan.


The flash is a little close to the lens for comfort

Lens
The lens of the TL34HD is a 3.7x Schneider- Kreuznach with a native focal length of 6mm - 21.6mm. That works out at a 35mm film camera equivalent of 28 - 102mm, which is a decent range for a small, thin camera. The wide angle is good;  28mm is wide enough to capture group shots with no problem, and we like to see cameras that offer more at the wide end of the zoom.


The lens offers a nice zoom range for a small, skinny camera..

Connections
This is a slight limitation of this camera; although it has the usual USB and A/V outputs for connecting to a PC or a standard-definition TV, these require a proprietary cable that comes with the camera. If you lose this, you have to buy a new one from Samsung. There is also no HDMI output as standard; to connect this camera to an HDTV and get the full benefit, you'll need to buy the optional dock which includes a HDMI port.

Battery
The TL34HD is juiced up by a slim 1100mAh battery that fits in the battery cavity on the bottom of the camera, alongside the memory card. Samsung claim that the battery life of the camera will be about 100 minutes when shooting photos every 30 seconds or so with a  mixture of flash on and off, but we were unable to test this at the Photokina show. The battery is charged either through the USB cable or with the included power adapter. This is an unusual, and welcome feature; it means that you can use your laptop to charge the battery, so you don't have to carry the power adapter with you on a trip. 
 
Some caution is required when inserting the symmetrical battery
into the camera to make sure it's right-side up.
Memory
The TL34HD takes SD and SDHC memory cards, which fit into the memory card slot just above the battery. SDHC cards are much smaller than their CompactFlash cousins, and Samsung guarantees compatibility with cards up to 8GB capacity. Bigger cards will probably work as well, though. 

Other Features
Face Detection & Smile Shot – The TL34HD has several smile detection features. It can track faces and focus on them, as well as holding off picture-taking until it detects that the subject is smiling. We tried the latter feature, and it didn't seem to make much difference; the shutter took the photo at the same time with it on and off. However, we are naturally happy people who smile a lot, so it might just be us.

Blink Detection - This feature quickly analyzes the photo after it is taken, and if a blink is detected, it takes three more photos in rapid succession, the idea being that there should be at least one shot where the subject is not blinking. It will not, however, do anything about your four-year-old nephew who insists on picking his nose in every family photo.

Beauty Shot - If your subject is less than perfect looking, this feature can try and hide their aesthetic challenges by processing the skin tone to hide blemishes. Two options are available; skin brightness and facial imperfections, and there are three levels of processing for each. Our brief experiments with this mode didn't show much difference with the feature on or off, but that may be because we all have perfect, clear and soft skin, with no imperfections (a job requirement). We also have clear, bright eyes and good teeth and gaze confidently into the future, so we will reserve judgment on this feature until we can find someone without our dashing good looks to try it on. Sometimes beauty is a curse.

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