Review: Samsung S1050 digital camera

Samsung’s S1050 is a 10.1-megapixel, 5x-optical-zoom compact digital camera that is part of the company's push to remind us that decent photos are not all down to the megapixels.

Other factors, such as lens quality, image sensor and ISO rating, matter too.

This camera boasts ISO ratings that range from 80 to1600, the aim of which is to produce fine-grained pictures at the low end, when light is bright, and to allow you to switch off the flash and use what natural light there is when it is darker.

We found images were very noisy when using the higher ISO ratings of 800 or 1600: there will be few occasions when a lower ISO combined with the camera’s flash won’t produce better photos.

At a low ISO of 80, 100 or 200, picture quality was fine, although again, we found its performance was influenced by the light. It tended to work best with less noise when the light was brighter, like most compact digital cameras.

The S1050 has a responsive face-recognition mode, which focuses on a person or people in the frame, provided both eyes are facing the camera. This means that if the person moves, the focus automatically adjusts, and we found this feature worked well. It also has image stabilisation, which helps keep shots sharp in low light but is slow to process photos. If the camera shake is too extreme, it can't do much, in any case. We saw a distinct improvement in our tests where we shot the same image with and then without stabilisation.

The camera is housed in a robust black casing, with a bright 3in LCD screen. It’s simple to use, but also comes with full instructions, supplied as a PDF manual on disc. The zoom button is well-placed and all the camera’s functions can be easily accessed.

It is just about small enough to fit into a pocket, in spite of the protruding lens, which has a focal length that is equivalent to 38-190mm on a film camera. It also has 48MB of internal memory, which is good enough for a handful of shots at top quality. Plus, it will film video at up to 30fps.

A downside, though, is that the Samsung S1050 uses a proprietary USB lead for connection to a computer rather than a standard mini USB cable, which could be annoying if you lose the supplied cable.

Overall, the S1050 is not a bad camera, but its performance was hampered by sometimes struggling to focus when light was slightly dim. It will best suit those who are not too demanding and want a simple point-and-shoot camera with a big LCD for composing shots.

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