Samsung WB650 Digital Camera - Black (12MP, 15x Optical Zoom) 3.0 inch AMOLED Screen

I have had this little gem for about a month now and have been blown away by it's quality. The styling is very understated but the build quality, size and weight is just perfect for my large man hands. The amoled screen is crystal clear and a vast improvement over the old lcd screen of my previous camera.

Now I am not a professional photographer, but the images taken of my children thus far, have been utterly superb and the extra wide lens and 15x zoom allows breathtaking, detailed shots. I have used the video feature several times at the school and nursery fairs and again the quality is fantastic. The video recording is limited to 20minutes per session, which is a tad annoying, as you have to keep an eye on the time bar before recommencing recording. I was standing 20ft away from the stage at my daughters concert and the sound recording was fantastic for an inbuilt camera mic. The only problem is that the sound is lost momentarily whilst zooming, but I think this is the case with most of this type of camera including Panasonic's TZ series.

The gps function is not something I thought I would use and to be honest it was a hell of a job to set it up because of the lack of clear info on the disc and Samsung's own website. However after much trial and error I got the memory card loaded up with the correct and specific files for the UK and it works well. It generally takes 80seconds to get a fix and even displays Cardiff in Welsh which I was most impressed with! The maps are very detailed and up to date and I have not experienced problems with it not recognising where I am in the UK so far.

I use the Samsung 8GB SDHC PLUS High Speed Class 6 memory card in the camera and it is just perfect for holding all the map info, pictures and detailed HD video files. The battery life is about 3 hours on seriously heavy usage so I cannot complain there although I would have liked a separate charger for the battery rather than having to charge it 'in camera' only- perhaps there is a separate charger sold by Samsung but it isn't included in the bundle nor is a camera case which always annoys me!!! Saying that, I cannot complain too much as my old Lowepro Rezo 40 fits it like a glove.

In summary if you are a proud parent who just wants to take great pics and HD vids of their kids without too much hassle, then this is the camera of choice. You will always get photography geeks (no offence intended ;o)) posting uber-detailed reviews in the specialist magazines and online, but in my experience there is no substitute for trying the product out for yourself and seeing how it suits your functional demands and style. I have long since given up reading the so called 'independent' reviews as there is a lot of 'behind the scenes shenanigans' going on with the major players like Sony, Panny and Canon greasing their palms.

Buy it, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

I used to own a Panasonic Lumix LX1. It was a great camera and quite portable but not quite small enough for a shirt pocket. So I sold it and bought Casio Exilim EX-Z77. It didn't have quite the zoom of the LX1 but image quality was acceptable and it fitted beautifully into any pocket you care to think of. But it wasn't really up to the job I wanted it for. Then I bought a Nikon D60 DSLR. The D60 rapidly expanded into a D60 with Sigma 10-20mm ultrawide, Nikon 18-200mm VRII and Tamron SP 500mm telephoto. A great combination but now I am back to the feeling I used to have lugging my 35mm gear around - it's hard work and gets in the way of my day out or holiday when I'm with family or friends. What to do? How do I get everything I've now got in my ever expanding camera bag and shove it once more, unobtrusively and conveniently into my shirt pocket? No, this isn't a fairy tale; the simple answer is, it can't be done. But read on.

Compact zooms got bigger and bigger (zoomwise) and better and better. Then Panasonic brought out the Lumix DMC-TZ7 and even professional snappers started going weak at the knees. I resisted the urge (easy since I was broke at the time) and waited for the price to come down. It didn't (not as significantly as I'd hoped for anyway) and, unless you want a US model or Asian grey import you STILL won't get one for much under £200. Then they brought out the DMC-TZ10 which looked great but inexplicably didn't get such good reviews as the TZ7 - having already owned the LX1 I was aware that Lumix cameras aren't exactly great in low light OR high contrast situations. But I was tempted. THEN Samsung brought out the WB650. The widest and longest ever compact zoom (24-360mm equivalent) with dual image stabilisation and OLED viewing screen into the bargain AND small enough to fit into a shirt pocket (significantly slimmer than the TZ7/TZ10). My temptation overcame me. I bought one and I'm so pleased with it that I thought I'd submit my own review - I took a shot by shot comparison with the Nikon D60 (with 18-200m VRII attached - equivalent to 27-300mm) and the Casio Exilim EX-Z77 (38-114mm equivalent) and a further comparison with archive shots (taken on walks in my village) from my Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1.

In comparison with the D60 the WB650 performed surprisingly well: colour and colour balance appeared to be virtually identical. The D60 had marginally better contrast than the WB650 - but that could relate to camera setup. All shots were taken on "Auto" with factory default settings for each camera. The D60 had the edge in sharpness at the telephoto end, but not by much and bear in mind that this result could have been influenced by the steadiness (or not) of my 58 year old hands. The BIG surprise was that, whilst the Nikon 18-200mm lens suffers significant barrel distortion at the wide (27mm equivalent) end, such distortion was barely noticeable at the 24mm end of the WB650. Having read many reviews of Samsung cameras I was worried about the colour balance of the WB650 but was please to find no grounds for these worries - as stated it compared VERY favourably to the D60 in that area. Neither did I find any evidence of purple fringing - with the caveat that the pictures have only been viewed at 17" monitor size and have not been enlarged beyond that.

Now the comparison with the Casio Exilim. No comparison - the WB650 had significantly better colour balance and more natural colour than the Exilim and the Exilim displayed a little purple fringing at telephoto end. It had significantly better contrast and vastly superior sharpness. The Exilim suffered noticeable wide angle barrel distortion which the Samsung did not. The Exilim has a 2 1/2" screen and the Samsung has a 3" OLED screen - strangely the Samsung didn't strike me as very much visible than the Exilim in the mixed morning light - a disappointment as I was expecting great things, but when reviewing pictures the Samsung screen is far clearer than the Exilim with superior colour. Overall the WB650 is in a totally different class to the Exilim EX-Z77.

Now for the Panasonic. Bear in mind that this is not quite so "like for like" as the last two comparisons. The Panasonic photos weren't taken at the same time, although the subject matter was very similar. The LX1 was a 4X zoom whereas the WB650 is a 15X zoom. Colourwise the LX1 and WB650 were close - also NO purple fringing on either. Contrast was similar. The WB650 took significantly sharper photos than the Lumix LX1 - the image stabilisation is two generations better. Panasonic Lumix cameras are built to, at least visually, a very high engineering standard. I have held a Lumix DMC-TZ10 and can state that it "feels" similar to a DMC-LX1 - that is, very solid and metallic. I have to say that the Samsung WB650 feels more plasticky but still very solid - I could not say that it is built to a lower standard though different materials are used and it is consequently lighter and easier to carry and hold than the Panasonics - only time and use will tell whether it will take the knocks as well as a Panasonic.

It does not have any software packaged on the included CD-ROM (this only contains the manual) but this camera does, unusually, have a built in processing suite (IntelliView) that starts up in the PC when the camera is connected via the USB lead. The USB lead is also the method by which the battery is charged "in camera", either from the PC or from the included 3-pin adapter. Also, when accessing the GPS map data, you will find that Samsung provide registered users with "Samsung Master" - a very good photo processing program that does a lot more than any other manufacturers packaged software.

GPS initially caused me problems - I failed to download it and install it correctly. Once I had read the instructions on the samsungimaging.com site VERY carefully and correctly built and populated the file structure on the SD card it worked very well. Initial acquisition of a satellite takes several minutes but then the camera zeroes in within seconds each time the camera is switched back shortly afterwards. The MapView facility will come in very handy for finding my bearings during "City Breaks".

To summarise, the Samsung WB650 is an apparently well built camera. It has a wider and longer zoom than any of the competition. It takes very good photos, better than my Exilim and at least as good as my Lumix DMC-LX1, though not QUITE as good as a Nikon D60 DSLR and certainly better than you might have been led to believe on reading other Samsung reviews. The fanfared OLED rear sceen is good, but not as good as I'd hoped in bright light - but it's better than the competition. Well, that's it then; this is a great new camera which I suspect will prove to be better than the Lumix DMC-TZ10. It does a lot of what my DSLR does, almost as well, including a significantly wider zoom than the Nikon 18-200mm VRII and it DOES fit into a shirt pocket! It will not replace my DSLR with its raft of lenses and ancilliary equipment but it WILL be a great camera for when I want to travel light - I strongly recommend it.

Having used this camera for a little over a year (current date 2/7/11) let me update my review. I'm still very impressed with outdoor photos - a little saturated (especially predominantly green scenes) but any over-saturations are easily corrected. Indoor photography is hit and miss and I usually take several shots with and without flash for scenes I don't want to miss. Whilst I accept what another reviewer says about OIS only working on optical zoom, I find the OIS at 15X to be nigh on perfect. Throughout the past year in many city, town and rural locations I have found the GPS to be pretty well worthless - it takes 15 mins to lock on if it locks on at all (quite a rare occurrence!), but a friend with a TZ20 has similar problems, so I think GPS is one of those thing that ALL manufacturers are going to have to work on if it is to be of real value. Overall, I'm still very satisfied with my WB650 (although I'd be equally happy with a WB600) - last thing, my frienf with the TZ20 has only had it 3 months and he's got dust specks either in the lens or on the sensor - a quick Google shows that quite a few people have the same problem with the TZ20. So you pays your money and takes your choice - I'm happy with mine.

I spent hours of my life that I will never get back reviewing cameras for my year-long trip across Africa. Given that I would be spending sometime on safari and that I would need to video interviews for consultancy work I wanted a camera with excellent zoom and HD video as well as vibrant colours and GPS to mark locations in the many countries I would be visiting. It came down to the Panasonic TZ10 vs WB650. Given the many reviews I saw detailing the WB650's poor battery life (would have been a nightmare in many of the countries I am visiting), the WB650's superior zoom and also because many comparison views of the two had the WB650 come out on top I went for this one. I now wish I hadn't.

When the camera first arrived, in mid-October just before I set off, I was shocked at the lack of detail in the manual. Furthermore the GPS system immediately revealed itself to be far too cumbersome to be any use. You have to download GPS maps and data from the Samsung website onto your SD card. The website only has maps for a very limited number of countries- there were no maps for the majority of countries I am visiting. For the countries it DOES have maps for, everytime you move countries you have to reload the maps onto your cameras to set the "default" country, i.e. the country which you are travelling round, otherwise the map information does not work. I cannot believe that a more simplistic, logical way of organising the GPS. A lot of people who be buying this camera will be doing so for the GSP, so they can remember where they took a photo and mark it. They will be doing this a number of different countries, many of which may not have the facilities (i.e. a decent internet cafe) to reload the data each time.

Now I am three months into the trip and I am disappointed to say the photo quality is not what I anticipated either. I am travelling with a friend who purchased the Panasonic TZ8 (like the TZ10 but without the GPS) and her photos are absolutely incredible. Many look professional, DSLR quality and the colours are very rich and striking. We take a photo of the same scene and there is no mistaking how dull, and even grainy, my pictures look compared to hers. I have fallen out with the camera and I have come to use the internet to buy the TZ8 (given up on GPS so not risking the TZ10) so my boyfriend can bring it out for me when he comes to visit in a few weeks.

Opt for the TZ8 or TZ10 instead.