Samsung Pixon 12 review

If the cameras in ordinary mobile phones killed the Polaroid camera, the Samsung Pixon12 may do the same for the compact digital camera. It is a mobile phone with an impressive 12-megapixel camera and from the back could easily be mistaken as genuine digital camera.

There is a dedicated button for the camera and unusually a proper lens shutter. It also has a Xenon flash, which is better than the normal LED-based flash found on phones.

The camera is easy to use with automatic scene selection or you can use the buttons on the side of the screen. It can take up to nine shots in very quick succession using the continuous mode and a vintage mode gives a retro feel to photos.

We also liked the smile detection. The camera will pause before taking a shot when the button is pressed until it detects a smile in the viewfinder.

The screen is also one of the best we have ever seen on a phone. It uses AMOLED technology so it can display up to 16 million colours. The resolution is also impressive at 800x480 so photos look good. It’s just a shame it doesn't have multitouch as this would make zooming in easier.

The camera's operating system has a distinctive Samsung look and we like the easy way you can select new home-screen widgets. The menu is also more colourful than other phones.

The Wifi utility is particulary worthy of note. There is a big friendly button to turn Wifi on and then available networks are displayed on the grid. Hidden networks like ours are also easy to add to the list.

The phone uses a standard microUSB cable to connect to a PC. It can either be connected to work with the Samsung PC Studio software or as a mass storage device to copy photos.

There are plenty of accessories in the box including a carry case, USB cable, charger, headset converter with mic and headphone socket, headphones and a 2GB microSD card with full-size SD card adapter. This card has enough space for around 500 12 mp shots with the camera.

The Pixon12 is available on o2, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange and we found it for £330 without a contract. It's expensive, but very capable.

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