At the PhotoPlus Expo trade show—taking place in New York City this week—the Samsung booth had on view one of the most talked-about cameras of the year: The Samsung Galaxy is a 16-megapixel point-and-shoot with an Android interface that lets you download various apps, including photo-editing and photo-sharing apps, directly to the camera.
What makes this model stand apart from the Nikon Coolpix S800c, the first camera with an Android interface, is that the Samsung Galaxy camera will include not only Wi-Fi capability but also 3G or 4G cellular service, depending on which model you buy.
This camera impressed me in other ways, too. Samsung appears to be making some very smart decisions, by taking features found in its smart phones and including them in its cameras.
One example is the Best Face feature, a new twist on face detection, which lets you fire off five shots, in quick succession, of a person or a group. At the bottom of the touchscreen display, you can then select and swap out one face and replace it with another, from a different shot.
Other great features include a large 4.8-inch LCD screen and a 21x optical zoom. No pricing information is available yet for this model.
The back of the Samsung Galaxy Camera