camera phones have grown by leaps and bounds. Long gone are the days of blurry shots in low definition. The phones are now able to take pictures which it is hard to say that they do not come from an SLR.
The only thing that most phones do not always have the level, however, is the zoom. Digital zoom is standard, which means simply that enlarges the image artificially cutting into what has already been captured and losing considerably in quality. This is not the case with the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. This Android smartphone has a screen with a diagonal of 4.8 inches has a 10xx optical zoom impressive on the back, like the Galaxy S4 Zoom last year.
Inside this Galaxy K Zoom is a photo sensor 20.7 megapixels combined with a stabilizer optics for sharp, blur-free images even at full zoom. Combine that with a sextuple heart processor, the Android software KitKat and Galaxy style to get probably the dream phone for photo enthusiasts. Less impressive, its proportions are too large and its display is limited to 720p. However what always turns out great for a 4.8-inch screen.
Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is available in France at 500 euros.
Design and Display
The Galaxy K Zoom can be considered two completely different products, depending on which side you look at it. Front (and “face”, it’s about having the screen facing you), it typically looks like another Samsung Galaxy smartphone. White hull of our test model has a silver border, with the usual physical home button down and the speaker grille with chrome effect top. If you’ve ever laid eyes on a Samsung phone released in recent years, this design will seem instantly familiar.
Turn it over and it becomes a camera, with almost no sign of his condition smartphone. The large domed circle optical zoom combined with flash wide giving the appearance of any other compact camera. The design has been modified from its predecessor the Galaxy S4 Zoom. Farewell unpleasant bulging grip of the rear shell and the plastic casing that made it difficult to hold. The battery Galaxy K Zoom is incorporated within the housing which provides for a finish rear similar to S5 dotted Galaxy. It is held as a normal phone when you want to make a call.
The curved side of the hull may be less pronounced but it is still far from negligible. The thickness is 20 mm at its most important point you certainly will notice if you try to slip it into the pocket of your jeans. It weighs in at 200 grams, making it a more beefy than the Galaxy S5 that merely 145 grams and 8.1 mm thick beast. If you’re already used to carry your camera in a separate bag, this size will not be a problem for you. Its bulky proportions however make it more difficult to handle than a traditional phone.
Among the other changes to the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom compared to its predecessor, there is the smallest trigger button on the side and the absence of the screw to fix the camera on a tripod. This sacrifice is a blow because it means that you’ll need pliers to your tripod if you want to shoot with a long exposure in low light. The zoom ring has also been removed from the facade. Zoom now operates using volume buttons up and down. It’s less annoying to zoom but the engine requires about four seconds to complete his race, which is quite slow.
K Zoom has a screen of 4.8 inch (about 12.2 cm), which represents a vast space to fit well your shots and rummage through the various adjustment parameters. Samsung has established a definition 1280 x 720 pixels, which gives a density of 305 pixels per inch. This is down from 431 dpi Galaxy S5. In compartment closely, it shows: the edges of icons and short texts do not have the same sharpness on the K Zoom on the S5. But the display is very good. This choice may seem odd from Samsung for a device dedicated to photography and image.
This smartphone comes standard with 8GB of storage which is enough to get started. As you begin to take hundreds of photos at once or record videos, you’ll soon need more space. Fortunately, the Galaxy K Zoom features a micro SD card reader on the side, so it is easy to expand the memory if necessary.
K Zoom as an Camera
K Zoom displays impressive skills for the camera. It integrates its heart a backlit CMOS sensor 20.7 megapixels which is physically larger than the Galaxy S5. A larger sensor means more light can be captured, which should give a better picture, at least in theory.
The trump card is the K Zoom 10x optical zoom. Digital zoom like the one found in the S5 zooment on images simply by cutting into it, enlarging it artificially. This does not capture many details. The optical zoom, for their part, use a shift lens to zoom, as if using a magnifying glass. The recording of the zoomed image is performed using all the capabilities of the sensor, while keeping the quality and image definition.
Zoom Zoom K is similar to having a 240 mm telephoto lens on the front of your phone. It allows you to capture details on faraway objects. It also has an optical stabilizer, so even at maximum zoom, it is “easier” to pass a steady shot and not blurred.
Taking pictures is as easy as with any other phone. Turn on the camera, select the Auto mode and go. There are a bunch of scene modes to choose from including classics like Panoramic, Rafale and HDR. The HDR mode is not like the S5, always on. It takes a series of pictures in burst mode, and then combined. What takes a little time.
Each shot takes it a little more time on the K Zoom on the S5. The autofocus is not as fast and the processing of each image is a bit longer. In practice, this means that the time between shots is about two seconds, which is not terrible. Using a method such as HDR requires a longer wait between each shot.
Image Quality
As the Galaxy K Zoom has a sensor powerful and larger than the Galaxy S5, one would think that the latest high-end smartphone from Samsung would be beaten flat-seam on the picture quality. According to our tests and our perspective, this is not necessarily the case.
Taken with the Galaxy K Zoom
Taken with Galaxy S5
On the first picture of St Paul, the exposure is correct, with many details in the shadows and clouds that are not washed out. The auto white balance, however, did not quite perfectly, making the blow extremely cold shot. There are many details of the cathedral in the center but toward the edges, especially at the buildings on the left, it has much less detail, seeming almost blurry picture there. In comparison, the Galaxy S5 has more natural tones.
This is really the zoom makes the difference for the K Zoom. By zooming in on the roof of St Paul, the cliché of K Zoom is much more detailed than the S5.
Neither aircraft impresses on the photograph of Tower Bridge. The scenes were generally quite dark even though the S5 showed a tone a little more pleasing colors.
With the HDR mode on, it was a different story. Photos of K Zoom showed warmer and more natural colors, with details on the bridge itself.
The photos of this plant have also reported mixed results. While the stereotype of the S5 showed once more warmer colors, he was also a blur. The Galaxy K Zoom delivers a much clearer picture.
The bright colors of the posters outside the Globe Theatre shine with the S5 but seem more discreet with K Zoom.
Both phones have properly photographed this vegetable stall at Borough Market, but once again the image of S5 was more vivid and contrast, giving it more force.
K Zoom as phone
In addition to the appliance part photo, K Zoom works in exactly the same way as other Samsung smartphones. It has the latest version of Android 4.4.2 KitKat on which Samsung has added its TouchWiz interface. She does the same with the S5, with multiple home to complete applications and widgets screens, and a band of shortcuts to the icons you do not want to clutter the screens.
There are also a large number of applications already installed Samsung whose schedule S-Planner, voice assistant S-Voice, a dedicated app store and Magazine My application is to the left of home screens. It combines several sources of information and social networks in a thread-like Flipboard.
However, the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom has no application and no S-Health pedometer or heart rate sensor heart is only for fitness enthusiasts. It works through a combination of a quadruple heart 1.3 GHz processor and dual processor 1.7 Ghz heart (six cores total). He does not use them all at once, choosing instead the first to demanding tasks and switching to the second, less consumer, when times less intense in order to safeguard the autonomy.
The smartphone appears perfectly smooth. You never know what processor is used but it does not matter. The route of the different home screens is no lag and no delay prohibit opening menus and applications. Heavy games like Asphalt 8 and Riptide GP 2 turned smoothly even at high settings. Photo editing is also done without hesitation.
Autonomy
In the thick shell, there is a battery of 2430 mAh. This is a reasonable power but it is not just to feed a conventional smartphone. It should also provide the energy needed for a camera in its own right. We spent two hours in the streets of London to take nearly 100 images of different test configuration, then using the free Wi-Fi to transmit to a 4G phone and share them on Facebook and Twitter. Full at the start, the battery is down only 85%, which is not bad at all.
with a more aggressive use of the phone, by operating the GPS and Bluetooth, Spotify in the background and setting the brightness to maximum, you will find that the battery drains much faster. This also happens when using the Xenon flash.
By doing a little attention, you will have no problem holding a whole day. Generally, you can expect to charge the K Zoom every night, like most smartphones.
This smartphone / camera hybrid picture that is the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom seems ideal for enthusiasts photo, but it is far from perfect. Its generous dimensions make it impractical for everyday use and images, although far from being bad does not show the difference in quality that one would expect compared to S5.
Test produced in collaboration with CNET.com
No comments:
Post a Comment