Review: Samsung PL150 dual-screen digital camera
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 12:43AM 
Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
Samsung’s gone full throttle with the innovation on the PL150, their $249.00 point-and-shoot camera with a dual LCDs and a slew of features unseen anywhere else. Many of the innovations don’t just make sense; they’re downright brilliant. But a few of the features seem unnecessary and frankly are head scratchers, is there such a thing as too much innovation on one device?
First the good stuff, and there’s a lot of it. The PL150 is an incredibly compact camera that’s the ideal pocket companion. A large 3.0” rear LCD manages to cover all the visual and technical information you would need plus offers an accurate view of the subject. The 27mm, ultra wide 5x zoom Samsung lens can accommodate landscapes superbly as well as capture detailed portraits which are made easier by the camera’s pre-set modes.
The modes are pretty smart and effective. Self Portrait, Couple Shot, Children Mode, Self Timer and Jump Shot (nothing to do with basketball, its simply a mode that allows you to time a jump so you can be caught in mid-air). There are also a few built in filters that add fun and creativity to the camera such as Miniature (which forces perspective and blurs the edges of photos for that tilt-shift look), Vignetting gives photos a dramatic high-contrast look of a pinhole camera and Fish Eye.
This is a 12.4 megapixel camera, so it can take photos which are ideal for large prints plus it does a satisfactory job at shooting HD Quality movies which can be viewed on most HDTVs though its HDMI connector. It also has a 7’ tilt-back body, which makes it so much easier to take self-portraits without a tripod since the whole camera can be leaned slightly for a great viewing angle.
The big feature, and the reason we would consider the PL150 over the current batch of point-and-shoot cameras, is the front-facing 1.5’ LCD screen. Yes, at first you might think that a front facing screen is gimmicky but for some people who photograph mostly, themselves…it’s a brilliant and successful idea.
No more hit-or-miss angling of the camera to get that perfect profile photo or the rare but important instance when you meet an important person, want a souvenir photo but have not one around to take it for you. Aside from making narcissism more exciting, the front-facing LCD is a valid innovation.
Anyone who has had to photograph babies and small children understands the frustration of firing dozens of photos while gesticulating maniacally to elicit a smile, a gurgle of laughter or even just maintain the kid’s interest. Well, another feature of the PL150 is that it shows amusing animations that instantly grab your subject’s attention, at least for the first few dozen times before the novelty wears thin. No worries, Samsung has a bunch of animations on their website that you can download to keep things fresh.
We said that the PL150 was utterly innovative, maybe to a fault. With all its awesome forward thinking and revolutionary strokes, there are a few choices that leave us flabbergasted. The PL150 doesn’t use SDCards or SDHC cards, which are the norm and standard of non-professional cameras. Samsung has chosen to use smaller size and capacity microSD cards that are better suited to smartphones and personal media players. So the half-dozen SDCards we accumulated through the years were completely useless and we had to run out and by yet another card in another format.
Looking at the size of the PL150, it’s hard to fathom why Samsung needed to go exotic with the memory card or why they didn’t, at the very least, include one with the camera. Another aspect of this otherwise brilliant camera is that it used HDMI not just as an output format but also as a power/charging format that makes the charger completely proprietary and unbelievably difficult to replace if you lose it. With the abundance of USB 2.0 and mini-USB chargers and cables out there, is this really necessary?
All this aside, the PL150 has proven to be a great all around camera, its fast and relatively quiet performance makes it a versatile option specially for users who are willing to par a bit more and get two screens.
Rating 4 out of 5
Reader Comments (3)
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