Review: Samsung GX10 digital camera

Samsung has been long established as a reliable budget electronics brand, and the GX-10, its latest digital SLR – on which you can change the lens in use to best suit any given subject and get more professional results – similarly offers a lot of camera for a relatively modest outlay.

Developed as part of a deal with photo expert Pentax, which has its own identical K10D offering, this Samsung includes an 18-55mm zoom lens to sweeten the deal.

It’s heftier and dearer than Nikon’s excellent D40 SLR – some £150 more at the time of writing – but the GX-10 does offer an extra four million pixels to (in theory) boost image quality.

Despite a plastic feel to the body, the Samsung GX-10 is in fact one of the more solidly built digital SLRs in its price range and with battery inserted and lens attached it's surprisingly weighty.

While that’s not necessarily a good thing – your shoulders may tire after lugging it around all day – it does feel like it could withstand the odd knock in the heat of the action, making it worth the outlay.

That impression is strengthened when you turn on the camera via a switch that encircles the main shutter button, their proximity enabling the user to be focused on an image with a half press of the shutter button and snapping away within a second or two with a full press.

We didn’t notice significant shutter delay or tardiness committing an image to the camera's memory, and overall speed was impressive. Plus, there is a reassuringly mechanical sounding shutter noise to confirm that a shot’s been taken.

Despite the fact that its array of buttons and controls might appear daunting to those trading up from a digital compact, they’re actually kept to a minimum, so the GX-10 is as user friendly as it is responsive.

The menus accessible using the 2.5in screen on the camera's rear can be picked up easily.
As with all digital SLRs, the camera doesn't come with a memory card, though the SD cards it uses can now be picked up inexpensively at your local supermarket.

When viewed on a PC, photos reveal a certain amount of purple fringing – a slim line of differently coloured pixels between areas of high contrast – but only under close inspection.

We also found a problem when shooting bright skies with dark foregrounds – if left on automatic the camera will overexpose the shot, leaving it quite washed out, but it's possible to prevent this with experience.

In all other respects the GX-10 is a solid buy for those wanting to get the right shots using the camera and avoid photo editing later.

Also Consider
Olympus E-400 
The world’s smallest D-SLR also boasts 10 megapixels and offers another alternative to the market-dominating Nikon D40/D50 and Canon EOS 400D.
Price: £600 (body only)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5

Nikon D40
If you want fast, near professional results but don’t want to spend a month’s wages, the user-friendly and compact 6 megapixel D40 offers excellent value – and images are as sharp as some 10MP offerings.
Price: £449
Overall rating: 5 out of 5
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