With the Galaxy S4 Zoom Samsung further blurs the line between a phone that thinks it's a camera, and a camera that thinks it's a phone. So which is it?
It's on sale now for around £450.
Design
With its relatively heavy body (208g) and chunky dimensions, not least due to the extendible lens that whirs into action as soon as you activate the camera, the S4 Zoom certainly seems more camera than phone. It won't nestle easily in your pocket and it feels a little odd when you lay it on a table -- place it with the lens down and it seems unbalanced, but lay it screen down and the weight makes it feel vulnerable. With smartphones becoming ever more sleek and svelte, the S4 Zoom looks and feels like a clunky, overweight hybrid that can't quite decide what it wants to be.
Samsung
On one side there's a volume rocker and power/sleep button as well as a large shutter button. On the other is a microSD card slot beneath a plastic cover and a tripod socket sealed with a plastic gromet. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB power/sync port and a large covered slot for the battery. On the front there's a single hard home button beneath the screen, flanked by touch-sensitive back and menu buttons.
More pressing, the screen, and it's a decent one by mid-range phone standards (and this is a mid-range phone -- don't be fooled by the S4 in the name). It's a 4.3-inch Super Amoled model that offers a resolution of 960x540 pixels. That boils down to 256ppi, which may be quite a few steps down from the original S4's 441ppi but it still looks beautifully bright and vibrant, if not quite as pin-sharp as the very best. Still, you won't be disappointed with its rendering of hi-res movies, or the small text on busy web pages.
Samsung
Android, software and performance
It's running the very latest 4.2 version of Android Jelly Bean, so it's up-to-the-minute for updates. On top of that is Samsung's TouchWiz interface, which is packed with distinctive-looking icons and widgets. These include Story Album, which lets you create slideshow photo albums for your homepage, and the Samsung Hub, which gives you access to Samsung's online media content including games, music, films and books.
It features some of Samsung's Smart Screen features too, which uses the device's 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera for Smart stay, which switches off the screen when it detects you haven't looked at it for a while, and Smart rotation, which makes sure the screen aligns itself to the orientation of your face, so if you're reading a page of text in portrait mode and decide to lie down on your side, it won't automatically switch to landscape mode.
The dual-core processor is clocked at 1.5GHz and backed by 1.5GB RAM, which seems pretty good on paper but appears surprisingly sluggish in use. Apps open smoothly but at a more leisurely pace than you'll find even on some other dual-core handsets, let alone the quad-core powerhouses. It recorded an AnTuTu performance benchmark reading of 10,872, which puts it behind some dual-core handsets like the Sony Xperia XP and the HTC One mini, but well ahead of others like the Motorola Razr HD.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom test photo Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom test photoDave Oliver
Photography
And so to the camera. It has 16 megapixels, autofocus, a bright LED flash and a whopping great 10x optical zoom lens. The physical zoom is powerful and much more effective than the digital zoom you'll find on most camphones. The optical zoom changes the focal length of the lens, allowing you to use the same number of available pixels for a closer shot of your subject without any loss of detail.
Don't miss: Gallery of photos taken on the S4 Zoom
You can use the on-screen zoom controls or the twist ring around the lens to operate the zoom, and sure enough, it's streets ahead of any digital zoom you'll find on a camphone. When you need to get closer to your subject, it's the zoom that really makes the difference, but the extra bulk it adds to the device means you'll need to be sure of using it a lot to make it worth your while.
Automatic focus is welcome though it's perhaps not as quick as you'd expect from a quality camera -- there were many instances when we were faced with a time-sapping red square while the camera struggled to find the range. It always got there in the end, but sometimes it took a while, so you could be taking a chance if you're after quick snaps.
It's packed with extra features too, including touch focus, face and smile detection, optical image stabilisation, HDR and a panorama setting. Picture quality is very good compared to its camphone rivals, with good levels of detail and reliable colour balance, though it starts to struggle a little in comparison with similarly specced dedicated cameras. For instance, there's a tendency towards overexposure on the automatic settings that we could have done without. You can get around it by adjusting the exposure settings but on this type of point and shoot device we'd be much more comfortable letting the camera do the work.
There's only 8GB of memory on board (of which you can use only 5GB) but you can add up to 64GB via microSD card. Chances are you'll need it.
There's a sizeable 2,330mAh battery on board, which comfortably delivered a day and more of fairly heavy use.
Conclusion
Let's be clear, while it has all the power and features of a decent midrange Android smartphone, the S4 Zoom is more of a camera with phone features rather than a phone with enhanced photo ability. It's shaped and weighted like a camera, and isn't very practical for slipping into your pocket.
As a camera however it's pretty good, and several steps ahead of any that you'll find on a phone, with the exception of some in Nokia's Lumia range, notably the 41 megapixel-packing 1020. So think of it as a camera first, but with all the additional media-sharing opportunities that come with a quality smartphone, and for some, that's a beautiful picture indeed.
It's on sale now for around £450.
Design
With its relatively heavy body (208g) and chunky dimensions, not least due to the extendible lens that whirs into action as soon as you activate the camera, the S4 Zoom certainly seems more camera than phone. It won't nestle easily in your pocket and it feels a little odd when you lay it on a table -- place it with the lens down and it seems unbalanced, but lay it screen down and the weight makes it feel vulnerable. With smartphones becoming ever more sleek and svelte, the S4 Zoom looks and feels like a clunky, overweight hybrid that can't quite decide what it wants to be.
Samsung
On one side there's a volume rocker and power/sleep button as well as a large shutter button. On the other is a microSD card slot beneath a plastic cover and a tripod socket sealed with a plastic gromet. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB power/sync port and a large covered slot for the battery. On the front there's a single hard home button beneath the screen, flanked by touch-sensitive back and menu buttons.
More pressing, the screen, and it's a decent one by mid-range phone standards (and this is a mid-range phone -- don't be fooled by the S4 in the name). It's a 4.3-inch Super Amoled model that offers a resolution of 960x540 pixels. That boils down to 256ppi, which may be quite a few steps down from the original S4's 441ppi but it still looks beautifully bright and vibrant, if not quite as pin-sharp as the very best. Still, you won't be disappointed with its rendering of hi-res movies, or the small text on busy web pages.
Samsung
Android, software and performance
It's running the very latest 4.2 version of Android Jelly Bean, so it's up-to-the-minute for updates. On top of that is Samsung's TouchWiz interface, which is packed with distinctive-looking icons and widgets. These include Story Album, which lets you create slideshow photo albums for your homepage, and the Samsung Hub, which gives you access to Samsung's online media content including games, music, films and books.
It features some of Samsung's Smart Screen features too, which uses the device's 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera for Smart stay, which switches off the screen when it detects you haven't looked at it for a while, and Smart rotation, which makes sure the screen aligns itself to the orientation of your face, so if you're reading a page of text in portrait mode and decide to lie down on your side, it won't automatically switch to landscape mode.
The dual-core processor is clocked at 1.5GHz and backed by 1.5GB RAM, which seems pretty good on paper but appears surprisingly sluggish in use. Apps open smoothly but at a more leisurely pace than you'll find even on some other dual-core handsets, let alone the quad-core powerhouses. It recorded an AnTuTu performance benchmark reading of 10,872, which puts it behind some dual-core handsets like the Sony Xperia XP and the HTC One mini, but well ahead of others like the Motorola Razr HD.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom test photo Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom test photoDave Oliver
Photography
And so to the camera. It has 16 megapixels, autofocus, a bright LED flash and a whopping great 10x optical zoom lens. The physical zoom is powerful and much more effective than the digital zoom you'll find on most camphones. The optical zoom changes the focal length of the lens, allowing you to use the same number of available pixels for a closer shot of your subject without any loss of detail.
Don't miss: Gallery of photos taken on the S4 Zoom
You can use the on-screen zoom controls or the twist ring around the lens to operate the zoom, and sure enough, it's streets ahead of any digital zoom you'll find on a camphone. When you need to get closer to your subject, it's the zoom that really makes the difference, but the extra bulk it adds to the device means you'll need to be sure of using it a lot to make it worth your while.
Automatic focus is welcome though it's perhaps not as quick as you'd expect from a quality camera -- there were many instances when we were faced with a time-sapping red square while the camera struggled to find the range. It always got there in the end, but sometimes it took a while, so you could be taking a chance if you're after quick snaps.
It's packed with extra features too, including touch focus, face and smile detection, optical image stabilisation, HDR and a panorama setting. Picture quality is very good compared to its camphone rivals, with good levels of detail and reliable colour balance, though it starts to struggle a little in comparison with similarly specced dedicated cameras. For instance, there's a tendency towards overexposure on the automatic settings that we could have done without. You can get around it by adjusting the exposure settings but on this type of point and shoot device we'd be much more comfortable letting the camera do the work.
There's only 8GB of memory on board (of which you can use only 5GB) but you can add up to 64GB via microSD card. Chances are you'll need it.
There's a sizeable 2,330mAh battery on board, which comfortably delivered a day and more of fairly heavy use.
Conclusion
Let's be clear, while it has all the power and features of a decent midrange Android smartphone, the S4 Zoom is more of a camera with phone features rather than a phone with enhanced photo ability. It's shaped and weighted like a camera, and isn't very practical for slipping into your pocket.
As a camera however it's pretty good, and several steps ahead of any that you'll find on a phone, with the exception of some in Nokia's Lumia range, notably the 41 megapixel-packing 1020. So think of it as a camera first, but with all the additional media-sharing opportunities that come with a quality smartphone, and for some, that's a beautiful picture indeed.
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