Samsung MV800 Digital Camera 16 Megapixels with Swivel Screen white

Product Information

The Samsung MV800 and Canon ELPH 500 HS cost about the same, and both have touchscreens, but that's where the similarities end. Like any touchscreen, the MV800's LCD occasionally misfired or didn't trigger at all, but this is one of the smoother, more efficient implementations we've seen on a camera. Of course, as a touchscreen camera, users can still just press the LCD to select a focal point and take a shot, but that requires an extra hand. For photographers who need advanced photo editing options, Pixelmator Pro for macOS offers layer-based editing, machine learning-powered adjustment and selection tools, and features such as Denoise and Super Resolution.

Magic Frame, Pose Guide, and Picture in Picture are all pretty tacky, and we're struggling to think of situations where they might actually be useful, or even just take good pictures. All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 16 megapixel SuperFine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5. In this respect, the Samsung MV800 is well placed to lead the fightback, boasting not only a smart-phone like user experience through its touch-screen operation and tile-led interface, but also plenty of app-like shooting modes that can be used to jazz your images up, without the need for a computer or any fancy image editing software. Plenty of casual photographers seem to prefer a slightly oversaturated quality in their shots, since it makes the sky bluer, the grass greener, and flowers more vibrant. Helpfully, the compact camera's 3-inch screen also features the ability to flip over if the camera is turned upside down, so you can use it from all manner of awkward angles.

The flip-up screen is genuinely useful—more comfortable for self-portraits than the front-facing LCDs on Samsung's DualView cameras, and handy for framing low-angle shots, too. It can get a little bit overwhelming at first, with no less than 32 modes, effects and options on offer, but spend a little time exploring and you'll soon find your favourites. Things do speed up considerably after the MV800 is up and running, although AF performance still isn’t about to set any records, with the average time for the camera to achieve focus in normal daylight conditions hovering around the half-second mark.

It sits flush with the body, covered by an automatic enclosure when the power is off, and extends about an inch when powered on. The final screen houses Album, Theme Album with Travel, Wedding and Party themes, self-explanatory Slide Show, Photo Editor, in which the image can be cropped and rotated, smart filters can be applied and the brightness, contrast and saturation can be altered, Storyboard Maker, which lets you create storyboards with a choice of layouts and text, Wallpapers for personalising the MV800 with a standard background or your own image, Help and Settings. The Samsung MV800 has 3 different image quality settings available, with SuperFine being the highest quality option. On occasion though we did witness some loss of definition towards the corners of the frame when shooting at maximum wide angle and slight softness at extreme telephoto setting, plus disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, burnt out highlights when shooting in brighter, sunnier conditions. The ‘Funny Face’ mode is laughably bad, although in this particular example it’s also an improvement.

Colours are on the warm side however, with red, greens and blues particularly flatteringly rendered, and under ideal exterior conditions we were able to get some pleasing results as our sample JPEGs hopefully show. Staying briefly with the other ‘sensible’ shooting modes, there’s a Touch Shot that enables you to select a point of focus and take a picture simply by touching the screen, a Self Shot mode for self-portraits, a Night Shot that allows you to control the shutter speed and aperture for long exposures (over one second), a Dual IS mode for sharper results at slower shutter speeds, a Close Up macro mode and a 3D picture mode (3D viewing device sold separately).

When filming video however, or using a finger to swipe through the app-like icons, the full widescreen can be used. The Samsung MV800 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 5cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle.

The built-in Image Stabilisation does an effective job of keeping blur to a minimum at longer telephoto settings and slower shutter speeds too. Also included is a cursory quick start pamphlet, with the main instructional 'meat' provided via the full manual on CD ROM only.

There's a shutter release, power button, playback button, "home" button that brings up the top-level menu, and that aforementioned auxiliary shutter button behind the LCD. It uses so much destructive noise reduction that it's difficult to see what the photo was supposed to be in the first place. But Samsung markets the MV800 as a picture-taking gadget for very casual photographers, and the gadget-y aspects of the design are actually pretty cool. It gets its own icon in the menu, and when it opens, it acts like a mobile phone app: A few sliders pop up on the screen, adjusting the lomo, brightness, and contrast settings.While this might all sound a terribly slow, it does need bearing in mind that these kinds of speeds (or lack thereof) are fairly common in point-and-shoot ultra-compacts like the MV800.