Today's News For You

There is no protection for the lens, touch screen controls are not easy to use, plenty of noise in the low light video, body is slippery, doesn’t have jacks for mic or headphone.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Samsung HMX-R10 HD has a 100x digital zoom with silver enclosure. Optical sensor size is 1/2.33”. Videos are recorded in H.264 format. Maximum shutter speed is 1/10000 second and minimum shutter speed is 1/60 second. Options for white balance include Automatic, Custom and Presets. White balance presets include Cloudy, Fluorescent, Daylight and Tungsten light. Exposure modes are Automatic and Program.

The sensor resolution is 9.15 megapixels, effective still resolution is nine megapixels, effective video resolution is 5.3 megapixels, interpolated still resolution is 12 megapixels. Images are stored in JPEG. The camcorder has Zoom lens – 6.8 mm – 34 mm – F/3.5-3.7 with 6.8 mm – 34 mm focal length. Lens Aperture is F/3.5-3.7 with 5x optical zoom. Maximum focal length is 34 mm, minimum focal length is 6.8 mm. Additional features include Takes photos while movie recording, Backlight compensation, DPOF support, Built-in speaker, Touch-screen control,

Direct print, PictBridge support, Interval shooting mode.

Handgrip is included with this camcorder. The display is 2.7 inches big. Connectors include Component video output, Composite video/audio output, HDMI output and USB. Bundled cables are USB and A/V. You also get a carrying pouch along with the camcorder. The gadget is powered by lithium ion rechargeable battery.

Razzle Dazzle:

Samsung HMX-R10 HD has an aesthetically appealing design, you get options for black and silver for the body. The camcorder can easily fit in to a small bag or large pocket. However, if you are used to traditional camcorders it will take some time to get used to this design.

Inside Dope:

Samsung doesn’t have a good hold in the camcorder market like JVC, Panasonic, Sony or Canon but they are trying hard with different varieties of models. Samsung HMX-R10 HD is a compact camcorder and is priced reasonably. It comes with plenty of shooting features for making it comfortable, the manufacturer has angled the lens at 25 degrees in order to reduce the strain that your wrist might have to bear. If you are fine with this, the camcorder will work well for you. This camcorder is not as good as prosumer models in terms of quality but it is still better than the pocket minicamcorders.

Video quality of the Samsung HMX-R10 HD is quite good. Quality is the best when you are in 1080/60i model and also the 720/60p resolutions. The latter is more consistent. If you shoot in 1080/30p resolution, the videos will be choppy/jittery and unwatchable. As expected, clips in 1080/60i were smoother but we could see artifacts and trailing. Videos were smoothest in the 720/60p mode and there was less trailing but we could still see the artifacts. There was a lot of noise in the videos for all the light levels low light/indoor scenes had lot of color noise and it distracted us a bit. There is something called 3D-NR noise reduction feature which smoothes out the picture to some extent. If you don’t like a lot of noise, we will recommend you to skip this camcorder. On the bright side, you get sharp videos, so it is like a trade off.

Color performance of the Samsung HMX-R10 HD as good as that found in the competition. The problem is that the colors look a bit faded and if you want to make things vivid, there is not options for controlling the color. The auto white balance is consistent but if you want to play with it, you have a manual option and some presets.

Shooting options on the Samsung HMX-R10 HD are quite nice inspite of this being a mid level HD camcorder. For instance, there is an option for four separate HD modes: 1080/60i (superfine quality), 1080/30p, 720/60p, and 1080/60i (normal quality). This is not uncommon but still a nice feature to have. If you like interval shooting, there is an option to record clips at 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 30 seconds for 24, 48 or 72 hours or the memory card space is exhausted. High speed video is captured at resolution of 600 or 300 fps with a resolution of 192×108 or 416×240 pixels, respectively. You can only capture ten second at once, but it plays in slow motion so 600 fps gives you 100 seconds and 300 fps has 50 seconds. This camcorder is made for simple point and shoot usage and this should be clear from the Auto mode, variety of shooting options and Easy Q slow mode. There is aperture, shutter speed and manual focus modes but they are pretty much basic and have been added up as an accessory rather than useful feature.

You use the touch screen for making changes to the settings. This includes adjustments to shutter speed, aperture and focus. The screen is as responsive as we would have liked so playing around with settings is a chore. You cannot calibrate the screen either.

Samsung HMX-R10 HD’s photo quality is better than that found this range of camcorders but I won’t recommend using this as a replacement for your digital camera. Photos in bright light with lower ISO have good sharpness and their color too is suitable for making small prints or for sharing on the Web. Photos have better color. The feature set is the same as that of the video mode; you get manual and semimanual controls which are to be used by the touch screen. Samsung says that this camcorder has resolution of 12 mega pixels but that is an interpolated number. You get nine megapixels of native resolution. Finally, you can click photos while recording videos but the stills will have the same resolution as the video; you cannot set a separate photo resolution.

We will recommend you this camcorder, if you are looking for something that offers more features than a mini camcorder. It can capture HD video but the best results are achieved in 720/60p option. The design is not good for everyone so we will recommend you to try this device before you before purchase.