Samsung ST550

Full Review

Even after almost a year of its launch, this attractive compact shooter still has enough features to lure us and justify a review. This attractive looking camera is packed with many intelligent features to make shooting photos and videos more fun and easier. Samsung has set the trend by launching a compact digital camera with a dual LCD.
Features & Specification
Like mentioned earlier, the main USP of the camera is its dual LCD screen; a 1.5-inch secondary display at the front for self-portrait shots and the main touchscreen display that measures a 3.5-inch with 912k color and haptic feedback support. The screen is as big as what we saw in the Sony CyberShot TX7, and it has a resolution of 800x480 pixels which looks super crisp with good visibility outdoors. The front LCD can be activated by just touching it and it helps shooting self portrait easier, and it can also show the timer and show a cartoon animation to entertain the kids so that they won’t look away while trying to capture their perfect moments. This is such an intelligent and handy feature indeed. The large touchscreen dominates the back while buttons for power and shutter release with zoom lever are at the top. The angled side on the top sports a playback button as well. The camera also has HDMI port for hooking up the camera to an HDTV and for the record it also is the first camera that we know that supports a microSD card instead of an SD.

Image quality is above average . Colors were not oversaturated nor overexposed rather they were rich and punchy.

Apart from all these interesting features that Samsung loaded, the ST550's optics is also well taken care of. It uses Schneider Kreuznach lens which has a focal length of 27-124.2 mm (35 mm film equivalent) is fairly wide and good enough to let us squeeze more imagery into the frame. Its 4.6x optical zoom, though, puts the ST550 in a standard compact camera category.  There is a Dual Image Stabization mode for less blurred images to take care of hand shake. The 12.2MP sensor also means you have enough pixels for large prints and cropping without losing out on quality. Its ISO speed starts from ISO80 to ISO 3200 which is decent. It detects facial gestures: smile, face with tracking ability and blink. There is a Beauty Mode, Smart Auto, Frame Guide. Another feature called Smart Touch AF tracks a subject after just touching it on the screen and a bunch of scene modes. The ST550 can record HD videos (720p) at 30fps and it also has 60fps video recording but in VGA resolution (640x480).
The camera also has an accelerometer and smart gesture controls to do various functions. For example, tilting the camera to one side will start the slideshow automatically without the need to dig deep into the menu to start the function. The touchscreen’s interface is simple and non-cluttered and the screen’s response is as good as what we’ve seen with Sony’s T-series of digital camera.  Based on which mode you are on, the Menu icon at the bottom of the screen lets us access different settings easily.
Performance
The Samsung ST550 is a well performer in its class. It took just 1.6 seconds to start up which is snappy. Shutterlag was measured around 0.2 and 0.4 seconds for with and without prefocus respectively which is average.  The burst mode speed of 1 fps at full resolution is by no means great for a camera in this price range though. For more fps, the camera can shoot 6 fps but in VGA resolution.
Focusing was quick under good lighting and it struggled a bit under dim light to get the focus lock on the subjects but overall it was satisfactory. Its Face, Blink and Smile detection worked flawlessly. The camera responded fairly quick to most operations and there was not much issue when it came to basic usage and navigating the menu.
Image quality is above average . Colors were not oversaturated nor overexposed rather they were rich and punchy. There were good sharpness and details. Soft cornering is also less which can be seen only when viewing pictures in their actual size. There is slight visible barrel distortion at the extreme end but chromatic aberration is well taken care of and is much better than what we’ve seen with the Sony CyberShot TX7.
Noise presence till the ISO 400 is acceptable, beyond that point though, images won’t be good enough for print. Outdoor night shots looked good with decent details even though it falls behind the Sony CyberShot TX7  in terms of noise reduction. Flash worked well with red eye correction -- a commendable job. The Dual I.S also helped in getting sharp shots while shooting at full tele or in low light. Macro performance is good and we could get as close as 5cm to the subject.
HD videos (720p) were not the best we’ve seen but they were not bad either. Colors were rich and details were fine but frame rates was average which caused the videos with fast moving subjects looked jittery. Optical zoom is possible during video recording but it's disappointing that audio recording got disabled whenever we used the zooming function.
With constant use of the front LCD and few minutes of video recording, the Li-iOn battery let us captured around 110 shots which is dissatisfying, so if you plan to carry this on your vacation, a pack of extra battery would be a keeper.
Overall, the Samsung ST550 is a stylish camera that offers many fun and exciting features, and  good performance. However, its price tag of Rs. 24,990 lands you in a place where you can get much more capable camera from Sony or Canon.

Bottom Line

Overall, the Samsung ST550 is a stylish camera that offers many fun and exciting features, and good performance across different lighting situations. However, its price tag of Rs. 24,990 lands you in a place where you can get much more capable camera from Sony or Canon.