Samsung PL200 Review

Samsung PL200 Overview

Posted: 07/27/2010

The Samsung PL200 features a 14.2 megapixel CCD image sensor behind a Samsung-branded 7x optical zoom lens. The PL200's lens has 35mm-equivalent focal lengths from a useful 31mm wide angle to a generous 217mm telephoto, and includes optical image stabilization, which should help reduce the likelihood of blur caused by camera shake. This is part of what Samsung terms "Dual Image Stabilization", with the other half of the function being Digital Image Stabilization, which combats blur using the camera's firmware, automatically raising the camera's ISO sensitivity (and noise levels) as needed.

There's no optical viewfinder, with images being framed on a 3.0-inch LCD display with 230,000 dot resolution, roughly equating to a 320 x 240 pixel array, with three separate red, green and blue dots per pixel.. The Samsung PL200 has the ability to record high definition movies at 30 frames per second in H.264 format, at 720p (1,280 x 720 pixels) resolution. The PL200 also includes face detection capability with smile shot and blink detection functions, which can be used to automatically capture a photo when everyone's smiling, and warn if anybody blinked. There's also a "Beauty Shot" mode which smooths skin tones on detected faces. The Samsung PL200 also has a selection of scene modes aimed at keeping things approachable for beginner photographers while still offering a degree of control over images, plus a Smart Auto mode which automatically selects a scene mode as appropriate -- even for movies.

The Samsung PL200 ships from September 2010, priced at $180.