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Samsung i7First Impressions Review

First Impressions Review

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Modes
March 21, 2007 By Richard Baguley
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Page 3

Auto Full auto shooting mode



Program


Program shooting mode


ASR


Auto Shake Reduction shooting mode

 
Model Design/Appearance
The i7 is available in two colors: black or silver. Both look pretty good, highlighting the curved, organic look of the device. The curved front of the camera and grip also help users keep hold of the device when shooting.

Size/Portability
At 4 x 2.4 by 0.87 inches, the i7 is a relatively small camera, especially when you consider the size of the LCD screen. And at under 8 ounces, it’s no heavyweight. All of this means that it's a bit larger than some, but it's still small enough to fit easily into a pocket or small bag.
 
 
Handling Ability
The i7 feels comfortable in the hand, but you really need both hands to use it properly. It is possible to use it with one, but we found that it sometimes slipped when using the zoom control.
 
Control Button/Dial Positioning/ Size
The five control buttons on the left side of the back of the i7 are well-sized and easy to use, but they're only part of the story. Most of the controls are accessed through the on-screen menu and controlled with the touch screen. We found the touch screen a little hard to use – it often took several touches to get it to register. Mind you, the model we looked at had been manhandled for the past few days by attendees of the PMA show, so it could be that it was a bit tired of being poked and prodded by hundreds of photo geeks or just wasn't final firmware. Check back for our full review in the coming months for further analysis.  
 
Menu
The touch screen is the primary interface for the on-screen menu, and the menu looks great, with nice little animations for the buttons zooming in and out, etc. It sounds gimmicky, but it adds a lot to the user experience. You get obvious feedback to show that your button press has been registered. However, moving through the menus does involves a lot of button pressing and getting to options like the ISO setting involved 4 screen touches. Pressing the menu button brings up the shooting mode menu with the following options:
In addition a touch button on the bottom of the screen gives access to the scene mode menu, which includes the following scene modes: Portrait, Children, Self Shot, Food, Café, Firework, surf & Snow, Sunset, Dawn, Backlight, Landscape, Close-up & Text. 

To access the camera controls, you touch the icons on the side of the screen, which are grouped as follows along with the following options:

Left side

Self Timer
2, 10, double (counts down twice)
Auto Focus
Auto Focus, Macro, Super Macro
Flash
Auto, Auto & Red-eye reduction, Fill-in flash, Slow sync, Flash off, Red eye fix

Right side

Image Size
7M, 3:2, 16:9, 6M, 5M, 3M, 1M
Quality
Fine, Normal, Economy
Metering
Multi, Spot, Center Weighted, Face Recognition
ISO
Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
White Balance
Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent_H, Fluorescent_L, Tungsten, Custom
EV
+-2 stops, 1/3 stop steps.

A number of setup features (such as sounds, etc) and special effects (such as cartoon, etc) can also be accessed through the on-screen Menu/Effects button.
 
Ease Of Use
The menu system of the i7 is intuitively designed, but the touch screen was a problem on the models we looked at; we found ourselves repeatedly poking at the screen until the i7 noticed that we’d been poking it for some time. Hopefully, this won’t be the case with the final products, but we’ll see. Other than that problem, we found the i7 to be a very easy to use device.
 
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Samsung i7First Impressions Review
First Impressions Review
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Previous: Page 2

Components

Previous: Page 4

Modes