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33 of 35 found the following review helpful:
 Do you homework 1st the NV24HD is what it claims to beMay 29, 2008
By Randall Kopf
I'm glad I did not read the poor reviews @ Amazon before I bought my NV24HD. Instead I relied on the Mfr SPECS and bought it. This is a GREAT camera. Anyone who says less does not understand modern technology. This camera fits a small niche... First it is a Point & Shoot with "Wide Angle" Optics. So if your expecting a Handycam with 30x Zoom this is NOT your camera. You should be doing limited zooming with this camera as it is limited to 24mm Wide to 85mm Portrait range. The camera is perfect for family environment. It takes amazing photos and the HD video is decent compared to any P&S considering it's size. Is the HD Video perfect? no but IMO it's pretty decent. While there are minor issues with the camera the key word is "minor". I don't agree the issues other reviewers cite are relevant I.e. its bad for landscape? Well Duh? The NV24HD delivers and is made really well. The AMOLED display is amazing, place this beside any other P&S with both on and see for your self how much more this offers with the Wide Angle Optics. If you have a need for a P&S and can accept Wide-Angle to Portrait range optics you owe it to your self to get this camera.
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18 of 18 found the following review helpful:
Outstanding camera, especially for the price!Jun 20, 2008
By Scott
This camera is absolutely wonderful. After shopping around and looking at cameras for what seemed like forever, I finally found this little wonder. Now people may be hesitant, as to the Samsung brand, I was too, but I am in love with this camera. The price tag of only $250 was great as it is probably one of the cheapest HD cameras you can buy (from a reputable brand), and its image quality simply rocks. I must say that I am a more advanced user who was looking around for manual controls to make my images pop, and this camera's manual mode does just that. You can control virtually everything (minus some very complex things like manual focus, but you really don't need control over those in a little point and shoot.
The camera takes excellent quality videos in the HD mode (be forewarned that you may need a beast of a computer though to play back the movies smoothly). Also people have been complaining about average image quality from this camera and I see nothing of the sort. Colors are vivid and can be mad more or less so by changing effects either before or after taking the picture. One smart feature that Samsung included was the fact that the camera is so speedy with its smart touch interface that it gives a quick update of filters and effects when you roll your fingers over the button. This is great when you want to take pictures in oddly lit situations and you need to quickly find out what looks the best for your photo.
One thing I was really worried about was the pop-up flash on the top of the camera. Moving parts scare me as they tend to break easily and when I looked at the little brother to the camera, the NV15, I saw that the flash didn't really close all of the way after being played with. This flash however feels solid and like it will always close all of the way and will always open promptly with the half push of the shutter button. Not to mention this flash is POWERFUL, it can light up a whole room, not like it's a Canon Speedlite, or anything, but this is by far the best flash in a Point and Shoot I have ever seen.
The smile mode is a hilarious feature, people get so surprised when you just hold the camera and when they smile, it just snaps away. Also, the red-eye reduction is a great feature and just edits away red-eye, unfortunately it can't do pet-eye.
Now of course there must be some downsides to the camera. The first camera received from amazon was defective, a whirring noise always came from the lens when it was at the widest zoom. Samsung confirmed this problem and promptly offered to fix it, I was satisfied with their prompt response (although I was unhappy to speak with Raj in India about how removing the battery might fix my problem, do they not think that I would have tried that???) Anyways I returned it and a new one was at my house the next day (way to go Amazon!) This one being without the whirr. I have a complaint about the whole zoom and loose sound thing, I think I could live with motor noise in my video, and even if I didn't like it, you can edit out the video. Another thing to mention is that the software that comes with the NV24HD is flat out weak. It is a photo sorter and basic editor. Basically iPhoto or whatever the windows version of iPhoto is. The last complaint I have is that the camera has no dock. Honestly a little plastic dock would not cost that much and would make me feel better about charging my camera so I wouldn't have to rest it on its brilliant screen or the nice Schnider lens.
Even with my little quips about the camera, I have to say that for the price I would rather have this camera any day over a Nikon Coolpix or a Canon Powershot.
15 of 15 found the following review helpful:
All in all, pretty goodMay 20, 2008
By C. Riley
I've had the camera for about a week [see below for my update after a month and two months]. So far, I am quite happy with the camera. The zoom has worked well for me and is an improvement over my previous camera. Likewise, the HD video is great on my HD TV. I've been looking for a device to replace my camcorder and my digital camera. In many ways this is the device.
The only negative I have noticed so far is that when recording video if you zoom, the audio cuts out while zooming (or a second or two before the zoom starts). This is not a deal breaker, but it should be fixed so that you can zoom while recording audio. Seems like a pretty common thing to do.
Things to remember: get a large memory card if you intend to record HD video. I got a 16GB (SanDisk) card and it is working well and gives well over an hour of video. As most people know, the internal memory is small so if you are doing any video you'll get about 10 seconds without a card.
July 21, 2008:After using this for about a month, I had a few more comments: First, the battery life is the main drawback so far. On one trip I didn't get good battery life, but on a different one, I got more than 4 days of pictures (about 220), so watch the battery to make sure you aren't running low.
Second, someone has said in the comments that the audio cutting out while zooming is to ensure that you don't record the sound of the zooming and is consequently a feature, I must disagree. I have had a lot of other video cameras that can zoom while recording audio without recording the zooming sound, JVCs, Sony etc. To me, if you can't record sound while zooming there is a problem: either the sound cut-out or the fact that it would record the sound of zooming is a design flaw because other manufacturers have managed to have this feature for decades without a problem.
29 of 36 found the following review helpful:
 One of the only true wide angle compact cameras, but...May 15, 2008
By T. Johnson
"electronics junky"
I ordered and received this camera from Amazon after seeing the ad from Samsung that it had the equivalent of a 24mm lens (on a full frame 35mm camera). 95% of these compact cameras have the widest equivalent to a 35mm which is fine for snap shot of friends, but really bad for photos of a room, or a landscape. the camera has a great feel, made of matte black metal. I have a lot of cameras and so I had others to compare it to-- that is where it falls down. You can't control the automatic noise reduction and even with the sharpening turned all the way down, and the images stabilization turned off, the files look very processed and the detail is very poor.. My favorite "happy snappy" is the Canon SD800 IS. Even though the technical maga pixel count is lower on the canon, and using interpolation to upres the canon file to the same res, using a professional focus chart from Century optics, you can see that the files from the Canon are WAY cleaner, and more color neutral and over all more pleasing. Even though the SD800 IS doesn't have as wide a lens (equ to 28mm) I much prefer it. That said, it is really amazing to get HD video out of this little guy!
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Amazing little camera!May 24, 2008
By Robert Fischler
Straight out of the box, I set up the camera with the time and date, and to imprint the date on each photo, and found the interface absolutely amazing. Samsung has done a brilliant job on it, making the camera very user friendly. I have used it indoors and out, have printed 4x6 and 5x7 prints, and downloaded images to my Kodak M1020 digital frame, all with excellent results. Picture quality is great, wide angle zoom gives great flexibility, and there's no other stuff to lug around! A camera this small with this much zoom naturally involves some design trade offs, and Samsung engineers have really nailed it, It won't replace a digital SLR, but for convenience, ease of use, and picture quality, I haven't seen anything in it's size or price range that I thought compared to it!
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based on 34 reviews
