Product Listing

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom takes smartphone imaging performance up a notch

By Hafeez Sim - 15 Aug 2014
Launch SRP: S$798

User Interface, Camera Performance and Conclusion

User Interface and Camera Performance

The Galaxy K Zoom comes with quite a few modes, including a manual mode

While the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom sports a better camera than your usual smartphone, it's still aimed at those who are casual shooters. Thus the K Zoom's default camera app comes with quite a number of pre-set modes such as Program, Landscape and more; it even has a Manual mode. Samsung lets you arrange these modes on the camera interface, so that you can quickly utilize the modes that you will use often instead of having the phone display all of them. This makes for a neater interface.

Do take note that the K Zoom’s optical zoom may not be available on all your apps. For example, pressing on the volume/zoom rocker when using Instagram only served to increase or decrease phone volume. This is because apps that do not utilize the default camera app/function would not be able to make use of the optical zoom.

Manual mode is more streamlined in the Galaxy K Zoom. All you need to do is tap the variable you want to adjust, i.e. shutter speed or aperture size.

You can select another spot in the frame to set the desired exposure level while focusing on your subject.

While the manual mode in the Galaxy S4 Zoom felt clunky, it’s been refined in the Galaxy K Zoom. The list of settings that you can adjust (shutter speed, aperture size, ISO) all appear at the top of the screen. Tapping on each of these settings will bring up the available choices for you to choose. As shown in the above photo, the Galaxy K Zoom also lets you split the autofocus and exposure areas, so you can focus on one spot in the frame, while choosing another spot in the frame to determine your exposure. It’s certainly useful when faced with situations that have varying degrees of lighting, though this may not present any apparent benefit to those who are less proficient in photography.

For images that will be uploaded online to social media channels, or if you don't usually view your images at full resolution, the imaging capabilities of the Galaxy K Zoom will definitely suffice. 

The Galaxy K Zoom has a 20.7-megapixel sensor that’s also larger than the one found in the Galaxy S5. A larger sensor should result in better pictures right? The problem is much more complicated than that when you bring in sensor resolution and optics. With so much resolution crammed into a small sensor, details get blurred when you zoom in, though we doubt the average smartphone shooter will be looking at the images in full resolution. If you’re the typical smartphone user who uploads photos to social networks and only views them on your phone’s screen, then the Galaxy K Zoom’s image quality will be more than sufficient.

It was a bright and sunny day, but the K Zoom's white balance put a bit too much blue into the picture.

When shooting scenes with varying levels of light, it's helpful to be able to base exposure off a different part of the frame. The shot on the left was with Program mode with exposure taken off the autofocus point. For the shot on the right, we've split the exposure and focus points, resulting in a more balanced exposure instead of being too dark.

The strength of the Galaxy K Zoom lies in its optical zoom, which provides much better quality at a further reach than the digital zoom used by standard smartphone shooters. You can get much closer to your subject and with no image degradation, the Galaxy K Zoom wins hands-down when it comes to shooting from afar. The device also comes with optical image stabilization, which helps to keep your shots steady even when you’re shooting at 10x optical zoom.

The K Zoom’s color reproduction and exposure were good (for a smartphone), but there were situations when the auto white balance produced pretty cold shots, with a bit more blue in the picture than was actually present in actual view.

 If you're not the type to meddle with the camera's settings, the Galaxy K Zoom has quite a few modes for the casual shooter. This was shot with the Sunset mode.

The K Zoom performs rather well in low light for a smartphone though pixel peeping will reveal the limitations of a small sensor.

Thus far, we've been showing off what the Galaxy K Zoom can deliver on its own, but we decided to also make a quick comparison against a standard smartphone for one of the trickier low light shots. For this purpose, we had on hand a Galaxy Note 3 phablet. It might be nearly a year old, but it has one of the best camera modules for its class and would make an ideal candidate to represent what some of the better smartphones are capable of.

For comparison purposes, here's a shot taken by the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom at ISO400.

Here's a shot from the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 also at ISO400. There's definitely less detail and more noise here, compared to the image taken by the Galaxy K Zoom.

While the shots aren't exactly identical as there are strobing light effects, it does give you an idea of what the Galaxy K Zoom with its 20MP sensor is capable over a 13MP sensor found on most top tier smartphones today. Additionally, the Galaxy K Zoom has 10x optical with optical image stabilization, so these are noteworthy attributes to have at hand in a smartphone form factor to give you better imaging capabilities without resorting to a dedicated digital camera to get an edge over most mobile devices.

 

Conclusion

The Galaxy K Zoom represents Samsung’s effort at producing a handy device that functions well as both a compact camera and a smartphone. However the camera aspect could use improvements, even though it’s a more polished effort compared to its predecessor, the Galaxy S4 Zoom.

At a glance, the Galaxy K Zoom's design and slightly larger proportions may lead consumers to believing that it has the best camera for a smartphone, bar none. When put to the test, the image quality of the Galaxy K Zoom is definitely better than most smartphone cameras, but we’re sure there might be situations where the best smartphone cameras might outperform it in terms of detail retention. But what you get in return for its larger footprint is the extra reach and better image quality since it uses optical zoom, and also less blurry pictures when shooting at its longest end thanks to its optical image stabilization.

There’s also a bunch of shooting modes and a manual mode if you like to tweak the various shooting settings. The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom definitely gives you more control than your run-of-the-mill smartphone, but with many top-end smartphones offering similar image quality (albeit without optical zoom) and better hardware specs such as a better screen or a faster processors, it’s difficult to justify purchasing this near S$800 device solely based on its camera performance alone. Furthermore, it's still outfitted with only 8GB built-in storage - hardly adequate for a either a serious smartphone user or a trigger happy shooter. You'll still have to rely on its microSD expansion slot to get your preferred storage capacity.

Value aside, if you're not too picky on specs from a smartphone perspective and you enjoy the fact that the Galaxy K Zoom doubles up as as an entry-level compact camera replacement of sorts with a true 10x optical zoom while still retaining a form factor not much thicker than the usual smartphone, this niche product could be your ideal everyday shooter. For some of you, this might even be your only shooter since most users carry a smartphone with them them all the time, but not a stand-alone digital camera or camcorder.

In some ways, you can also think of the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom as a travel compact companion as it doubles up duty as a smartphone and compact camera. Having less devices to manage and lug around is always a good thing, but be warned that unlike a 2-in-1 device like the ASUS Padfone series where both the phone and tablet elements are standalone devices with their own battery and can complement each other to extend the battery of any one device, the Galaxy K Zoom is a single product serving both functions of a phone and camera, but its battery pack is not rated any higher than other standard phones. If one were to use both functions in excess, the Galaxy K Zoom's battery would get depleted fast. As such, it's good to know the merits and limitations of the device to see if it suits your needs.

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