Junk in the hood and and trunk! The Samsung TL210 has a second LCD right next to its lens. Check out our full review here.
Samsung TL210 Overview
Two LCD screens on a point-and-shoot!? Yes, the Samsung TL210 has an extra monitor located to the left of the lens for a pocket-sized photo booth effect. Gimmicky? Yes. But we were surprised at how handy the second screen was—no need to guess and shoot. Just line up the shot and finagle the right angle. Think of how much valuable time you'll save locals from asking you if you want your picture taken on top of Cadillac Mountain.
"No thanks, it's got an LCD on the front so I can take the picture myself."
"Well I'll be darned, Velma, we gotta git ourselves wunna them Samsungs!"
Not only did we like the Samsung TL210's 1.5-inch front LCD, but image quality was very good for a point-and-shoot, including 720p .MP4 (Yes!) video and an optional 60p recording mode (at a much smaller resolution). Camera controls were basic, but we did get a decent shutter for low light and some nifty Image Effects like Miniature and Fish-eye, to raise a sword to the new Canons this year. See the dual-LCD Samsung TL210 in action here:
Shooting with the Samsung TL210
We had a roulette wheel of shooting modes, the most advanced being Program AE. If we wanted to toy with the Shutter, Night mode let us dip down to eight seconds. We also had a dedicated Video mode, which offered 720p video at either 30 or 15fps, and a 320x240 60p recording mode, which was nice for filming fast motion, as long as we didn't care about image quality and resolution.
The Samsung TL210 also included a small cast of fairly basic Scene modes, but it was the camera's various image modes that really lassoed us in. Two Fish-eye modes, a Vignette (pinhole), and Miniature (what point-and-shoot doesn't have Miniature in 2010?), and a bunch of color options, including a black-and-white comic book style Sketch mode that made everything look like it came out of a Stan Lee feature.
Face Detection and Smile Shutter really came in handy while shooting with the Front LCD, and overall, the Samsung TL210 was a solid little eccentric shooter. It offered a 27mm wide-angle lens with a 5x optical zoom, and menus were sleek and well designed.
Our few complaints about the Samsung TL210 were minimized to the fact that it captured images and video to MicroSD cards, the four-way directional pad was sluggish and inaccurate at times, and using the dual LCD screens sucked the battery dry. However, Samsung offers the TL225, which features a 3.5-inch touch-screen LCD in addition to the front LCD for 80 bucks more. Out of all three front LCD models, we still have to deal with MicroSD cards, which require a converter for a standard SD slot and will fly away into oblivion if you sneeze, due to their puny size. However, we really like where Samsung is going with this and are looking forward to the progression of front LCD compacts.
Samsung TL210 Still Image Quality
Surprisingly, the Samsung TL210's basic 1/2.33-inch CCD exhibited impressive color reproduction, low noise, and crisp detail. Even at lower ISO levels, the Samsung TL210's noise levels were not as drastic. We were able to snag some fairly decent shots using the front LCD as well, and the Image Effects were fun to play with. On the downside, the TL210 chose the same Aperture for every shot we took, so this camera is definitely equipped for a shallow depth of field. Regardless, we wanted to see if the Samsung TL210 could transcend its target shooting environments and venture into some very basic amateur photography, and the camera delivered.
The best part about the Samsung TL210's 720p HD video was that fact that it captured .MP4 files, which play very nicely with YouTube. For some peculiar reason, all of our video files played terribly choppy on our Mac, but were fine on YouTube and when we viewed them via HDMI. The 320x240 60p recording did not give us quality, but gave us a quick solution for low-megabyte fast action clips to throw on YouTube. All in all, the Samsung TL210's video quality was right up there with other compacts in its price range.
Price and availability
The Samsung TL210 is available now for approximately $230.
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