Samsung L77

Posted by T3 Online on Tue 30 Oct 2007

Slender Samsung hides a kick-arse lens.

Every month A new camera comes along claiming it's all that, due to some innovation or another. It could involve being the slimmest or cleverest, or having amazing new features like an ability to refrigerate fish or calculate darts scores. The L77's shout for glory is that it's the world's slimmest with a 7x optical zoom. It's a boast worth shrieking about. The L77 looks gratifyingly different too, with a matt-charcoal body perfectly complemented by an electric-blue lens trim. At 21mm the body would be considered slim even with the industry standard 3x zoom, but it squeezes in an incredible seven factors of zoomitude. Start-up to taking your first pic is a blistering two seconds, in part due to the prompt shutter. Focusing is fast too, but we're surprised only macro and central autofocus options are available. The 2.5-inch LCD adjusts easily to cope with dark and light conditions. Commands are scattered around four different menus, which is a bit daft, but you can get over this with boring stuff like practice and reading the manual. Meh. Other than that, the only major blight is that the amazing zoom is operated by a rather placcy switch. It's an irony to leave Alanis Morissette dribbling. Photos, to be fair, are not outstanding, with highlights burning out in bright conditions, while the anti-shake is slow, and no match for an optical system. Having got that off our chests, we have to accept that the L77 still offers much more than the average compact and looks unfeasibly stylish to boot. If you like snapping things far away, its zoom will, quite literally, "shake your room".