Samsung TL34HD

Reviewed January 2009

Introduction

Minimalist lensslingers will love the paucity of controls on the body of the TL34HD ($194-$329). The dearth of buttons and knobs can be attributed to the camera's touch-screen interface. Many functions typically assigned to a physical control have been transferred to virtual ones on the snapper's brilliant three-inch display.

And we don't use the adjective brilliant lightly. The HVGA display with a resolution of 430,000 pixels, is bright and sharp and can hold its own even with direct sunlight shining on it. With all the poking and dragging that goes with using a touch-screen interface, though, maintaining the screen's pristine view of the world is a full-time task. Fingerprints and skin oil build-up on the LCD, unless assiduously removed, can make looking through the screen like gazing through a dirty windshield.

Initially, the touch-screen interface may take some getting used to. Eyeing the battery of icons for the first time can be daunting. However, Samsung makes it easy to learn the interface. When your finger comes in contact with an icon, a label identifying what the glyph does pops up on the screen. Remove your finger, and a menu appears ready for you to poke a choice. You can slide your finger from icon to icon to see what each one does. To avoid displaying a menu, you slide your finger to an empty area on the screen.

Once accustomed to the system, we found it, for the most part, responsive and quick to operate. The slider controls, though, didn't function smoothly, and the tabs in the main menu sometimes needed more than one jab before screening their items.

Point-and-shoot enthusiasts need not take the TL34HD out of auto, but the camera has lots of flexibility for more adventuresome shutterbugs.

In Program mode, a variety of focus areas and metering choices are available, as well as a range of light sensitivity settings and exposure compensation, which lets you under- and overexpose shots for best effect. There's also an auto-bracketing feature for taking an exposure bracket with a single prolonged press of the shutter button.

Manual mode extends a lens jockey's control even further by allowing them to customize both the shutter speed and aperture for a shot.

Similar flexibility is extended to the camera's video mode. You can set an autofocus mode, a metering method, white balance setting and apply exposure compensation. What's more, you can use the self-timer in video mode.

Speaking of the self-timer, not only does it have the typical two- and 10-second delay, but a double shot mode where it takes one shot after 10 seconds and another automatically two seconds later, thereby doubling the chances of a good shot.

While the TL34HD's feature set and flexibility are very nice, its image and video quality is uneven.

Outdoor shots were very good. The TL34HD's 3.6x wide angle optical zoom performed ably through its entire range.

Indoor shots, shots in low light conditions and shots at higher ISO settings like 1600 and 3200 were noisy.

Video captured at the camera's best settings was better than typical fare uploaded to the Web, but disappointing when displayed on a 24-inch HD monitor. What's more, editing the video is problematic. Samsung's Windows software wouldn't play back the video properly and Apple's consumer editing programs, iMovie HD and iMovie '08, couldn't deal with the HD files either, although the movies would play in Apple QuickTime on Windows and OS X.

Battery life is another problem with the TL34HD. It's shorter than what's typical for a camera in this category. We suspect that the expansive LCD and the processing power to operate the touch-screen interface translate into a big hit on the unit's juice resources.

The TL34HD offers aim-and-fire clicksters an easy-to-use ultracompact camera with plenty of ways to experiment with their photographic inclinations, as well as with HD video on the Web, but those benefits must be weighed against the snapper's uneven photo qualiity and subpar battery performance.