Samsung TL210 Review

The Samsung TL210 features a 12.4 megapixel CCD image sensor behind a Samsung-branded 5x optical zoom lens. The TL210's lens has 35mm-equivalent focal lengths from a useful 27mm wide angle to a moderate 135mm telephoto. The TL210's lens includes optical image stabilization, which should help reduce the likelihood of blur caused by camera shake, as part of what Samsung terms "Dual Image Stabilization". The other part of the function is 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 dots of resolution, which equates to around a 320 x 240 pixel array with three dots per color. A particularly unusual feature of the Samsung TL210 is that in addition to the main, rear-panel LCD display, it also includes a secondary color LCD on the camera's front surface adjacent to the lens. It serves as an alternative to the articulated displays found on some cameras, which can often be tilted and/or swiveled so as to allow them to be seen from in front of the lens - useful for self portraits and group shots using a timer. The dual-display approach offers an advantage over such designs in that there's no need for a potentially fragile tilt/swivel mechanism. On the other hand though, it doesn't allow the LCD screen to be protected from damage by folding it inwards as can be done with a tilt/swivel display - and indeed, there's now twice as many displays risking damage from a knock or scrape. The front-panel display is also significantly smaller and lower resolution, at just 1.5-inch diagonal. Samsung has retained the ability for the front-panel display to frame self-portraits using the timer, as well as for a countdown display during timer operation (ensuring everybody knows when to smile), and to show a brief animation when the camera is in Children mode, intended to catch your child's attention so they look directly at the camera while their photo is taken. In addition, it is now possible to frame videos using the front LCD, and the Children mode animation is now accompanied by a short musical clip to further grab a child's attention.

The Samsung TL210 has the ability to record standard or high definition movies with sound at 30 frames per second in H.264 format, with a maximum resolution of 720p (1280 x 720 pixels). Connectivity options include HDMI video via an optionally available adapter, allowing the camera to be connected to the latest high-definition displays. The TL210 also includes face detection capability with both smile and blink detection functions, which can be used to automatically capture a photo when everyone's smiling, and then retake the image if anybody blinks. There's also a "Beauty Shot" mode which smooths skin tones on detected faces, and offers three user-selected levels of smoothing. The face detection is also used to offer a Red-Eye Fix function which automatically locates and corrects for this common image defect. In addition, the TL210 includes Smart Face Recognition technology, which allows twenty individuals' faces to be registered in-camera and then recognized in subsequent shots. Once identified, those individuals' faces will be given priority over unrecognized faces in the scene when determining exposure variables, and can also be searched for in the Smart Album playback mode. The Samsung TL210 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 TL210 ships from Spring 2010. Pricing information was not available at press time.