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Samsung i7

Posted by T3 Online on Mon 26 Mar 2007

Shtick or twist?

As camera-phones mop up casual snappers, "real" digital cameras are sprouting increasingly daft features to keep photo enthusiasts excited. Samsung's latest effort is literally all-singing (it has an MP3 player) and all-dancing (its screen twirls around).

The three-inch gyrating screen does have one function: rotate it through 90 degrees to select PMP mode, or through 180 degrees for instant power-up and access to the camera controls. It's also a touchscreen that allows you to select tracks, adjust settings and navigate menus - as long as your fingers aren't too podgy. It's easy enough to use, but no quicker than a half-decent D-pad. Cheap, plasticky zoom buttons don't help.

As a PMP, the i7 is bargain-basement basic. Tunes sound fine and videos are clear enough, but you have to transcode movies using the software on your PC first. It also displays text files and comes with a crazy animated Worldwide Tour Guide containing descriptions of landmarks from 30 countries worldwide.

Hiding under all this multimedia nonsense is a decent-enough seven-megapixel compact. Images are bright and colourful, if low on detail and prone to wandering focus. The movie mode has two nice surprises: you can use the silent 3x zoom while you film, and clips can be recorded at near-DVD sizes. Other welcome innovations are a generous 450MB internal memory, and the option to use high-capacity SDHC cards.

In all honesty, though, there's a reason why nobody's made a PMP-cam with a rotating screen before, and it's called common sense. It's fun for a quick spin, but this is just a gimmick too far.

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Related links:

• Samsung