Samsung WiFi camera leaked
Samsung's latest compact camera - leaked ahead of an official announcement at CES in January - brings WiFi support.
The CL80 appears, at first glance, to be nothing more than a traditional - if pretty high specification - compact digital camera, with 7x optical zoom, 14 megapixel CCD sensor, and hardware image stabilisation to keep the images crisp and smart.
The screen adorning the rear is pretty crisp, too: the specifications promise a 3.7" AMOLED touchscreen with haptic feedback, although this rear-filling display comes at the cost of a viewfinder.
With support for ISO sensitivity of up to 4,800 - or 6,400 if you don't mind dropping the sensor down to 3 megapixels - the camera is said to be capable of recording H.264 video at up to 720p, and come with an HDMI port for wowing the family with your holiday snaps on your big screen without needing a computer.
Indeed, it's this ethos - the ability to enjoy all the functions offered by a digital camera without ever needing to hook it up to a computer - that has driven the CL80's most impressive feature: integrated 802.11g wireless connectivity. According to Electronista, which quotes a thread on the DPReview website quoting a hastily removed page on the Samsung website, the CL80 is due to introduce the ability to upload to sites including Flickr, Photobox, Picasa, and Facebook directly from the camera - providing you're within range of a wireless access point, of course.
While wireless cards have existed as add-ons for cameras for a while - the most famous of which is the Eye-Fi SD card - this marks one of the first digital cameras to include the technology on-board. Sadly for those hoping to use the technology for easy sharing of New Year's party photos, Samsung is tight-lipped as to the release date and expected pricing.
Does the idea of a point-and-shoot camera with integral wireless seem like the logical next step, or should Samsung just integrated a smartphone in there and be done with it? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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17 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyThen you'd need a computer, which is what samsung dont want. They're aiming for the camera to be able to do everything on its own without the need for a PC i think.
Really, just don't. In professional cameras wifi would be a nice addition as you could get the preview on the screen over a high speed connection, but on compact cameras it's just another gimmick to get the attention of silly customers.
I know that Photobucket will automatically re-size images that exceed a given threshold, and I imagine other sites do so as well. Even with the additional compression, the resulting image still can be better than what you get with a camera phone. In time, I can imagine the camera's "upload to the web" feature utilizing the same technology: when you post an image to the web the camera uploads a JPG at some predetermined size, but it keeps the full-res file on the memory card for archiving later.
With the whole "cloud computing" thing, there's always the idea of a camera automatically uploading files to a dedicated server - no more worrying about filling up a memory card! Think about it: a correspondent in the middle of a protest, instantly transmitting images to a photo editor back at the paper. Take it a step further: A media outlet can set up a dedicated server, then tell people that they can send their photos to that address. Suddenly, every person in the rally is a photojournalist.
The technology has to start somewhere. I think it's a cool feature.
I think it's a nice idea, but in practice a bit of a gimmick. As other people have said, most people won't really be able to use it and a professional would probably have a laptop hooked up to a proper camera anyway.
Shh, that's probably what Samsung will do with a Pixon50.