Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been a couple of months since we got to play around with Samsung’s latest Android-powered camera, the Galaxy NX, but consumers over in the UK can now grab the camera from a couple of retailers that have it on sale. Jessops, Currys, and Wex are selling the Galaxy NX for a staggering £1,299. That […]

Samsung does not only churn out brilliant smartphones (in recent years, anyways. Anyone who has used the early iterations of mobile phones from Samsung would know just how much of a recycled plastic feel there was in the beginning), but they have also moved on to other segments of the consumer electronics industry – including the realm of digital cameras. This time around, the Samsung Galaxy NX has been announced, where it holds the distinction of being the first 3G/4G LTE connected Compact System Camera (CSC). Samsung claims that it is versatile and easy to use, where the Galaxy NX would merge cutting edge optical performance with connectivity capabilities, in addition to having a slew of applications that will be able to run on an Android eco-system, where it is all crammed into a single, stylish package.

With the Galaxy NX camera being hooked up to the Internet all the time (as long as there is a signal, of course), you need not worry about your photos getting lost, ever again. After all, each photo that is taken will be uploaded to the cloud for safe storage. It does not matter whether you are on the move or at home, the Galaxy NXs’ seamless connectivity will be able to transcend the current offering to photographers. Not only that, you can also follow up on the trail of other shutterbugs who have gone before you, as the Photo Suggest feature would offer location based recommendations of popular photography spots, and all of these recommendations have been sourced from a huge library of images which were snapped by fellow photographers prior.

The Samsung Galaxy NX would pack in a 20.3-megapixel APS-C Sensor that is said to deliver bright and detailed images, even in low light conditions, where it will be accompanied by the DRIMe IV Image Signal Processor, achieving speed and accuracy levels which today’s photographers demand. Not only that, it also boasts of an Advanced Hybrid Auto Focus (AF) System, a 1/6000 sec shutter speed, a bevy of Interchangeable Lenses to choose from, all running on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean as the platform of choice. There is no word on pricing just yet though, but it should arrive sometime in the third quarter of the year.

Press Release
[ Samsung Galaxy NX camera announced copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Now that video on Instagram just got real, a connected pro camera with direct access to Android apps makes a fair bit of sense. Enter the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy NX.

Samsung continues to push its Galaxy brand into new devices’ types and categories, a strategy aimed at extending the success it’s had with the brand in smartphones. Today the Korean giant has added the Galaxy badge to its high end camera range, with the launch of this digital mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC): its first interchangeable lens camera to run Android.

Samsung’s other high end cameras have been badged NX but this is the first time it’s used the Galaxy brand on its pro range. It’s not, however, the first time it’s pushed the Galaxy brand into camera tech territory — having recently extended the Galaxy S4 range with a hybrid smartphone point-and-shoot camera with a 10x optical zoom on the back. That device, the Galaxy S4 Zoom, remains a mid-range affair. It’s certainly not targeting the professional photographer market, as the Galaxy NX presumably is. Samsung also previously launched another mid-range camera running Android, called the Galaxy Camera — making extending the brand to its pro MILC range a natural next step.

The Galaxy NX runs Android 4.2.2 skinned with a version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI tweaked to make sense for the camera format. This means the UI defaults to the camera app view. Swiping left from there brings up a familiar Samsung Android home screen where users can get at all the usual Android stuff including Google Play, the web browser, plus apps — like Instagram, say. And that’s the obvious use-case for a bit of kit like this: being able to post near-SLR quality photos direct to apps like Instagram or share on social media, without even having to pull the photos off the camera first. The Galaxy NX has both 4G/LTE and Wi-Fi built in. It is Samsung’s first interchangeable lens camera to include LTE, in fact.

The version of Android on the Galaxy NX does not include a phone dialer but that’s the only other major software difference when compared to a typical Samsung smartphone. The point here is clearly for Samsung to leverage the familiarity of its TouchWiz environment to try to bolster the appeal of its high end camera kit.

Who might the Galaxy NX appeal to? Perhaps someone  hankering for a better camera but not necessarily yet especially well versed in how to use more pro photography equipment. The external look and feel of the Galaxy NX bears that theory out, being especially plain looking — almost devoid of markings. It’s also terribly lightweight for such a large bit of kit, adding another convenience string to its bow.

The Galaxy NX has a 20.3MP APS-C CMOS Image sensor that’s 24mm in size. It’s powered by Samsung’s DRIMe IV processor, which it says is 4x faster than its previous processor. The device supports up to 25,600 ISO, and it’s the same family of interchangeable lens as Samsung’s prior MILCs.

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