Samsung Galaxy Camera Android snapper on sale this week
The first 3G camera, the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Camera, is on sale on 7 November -- this Wednesday evening.
The first 3G camera hits shops this week. The Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Camera is on sale on 7 November -- this Wednesday evening -- for the wallet-lightening price of £399.
Unveiled in August, the plainly named Samsung Galaxy Camera goes on sale at Samsung stores at 5pm on Wednesday. Then it's on sale at other shops from Thursday, including camera shops such as Jessop's and the phone-focused likes of Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U. Prices at these stores may vary.
The quad-core camera runs Google's Android software for mobile phones and tablets, which means you control it by tapping and swiping on the screen, just like you do with your smart phone. It's based on the same home screens you fill with apps, downloaded over Wi-Fi from the Google Play app store.
Wi-Fi and 3G are built-in, so you can download apps, check your email and browse the Web, and send pictures too, uploading photos and videos to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and more.
The software is the (almost) latest version of Android, 4.1 Jelly Bean. We're excited to see if the camera is updated quickly to the new version 4.2 of Jelly Bean, because 4.2 includes a very cool feature called Photo Sphere.
Photo Sphere doesn't just capture what's in front of the person holding the camera, it captures everything all around to create a 360-degree bubble, which you can move around in when you view the picture to see what was behind and above the camera too.
On the photography front, the Galaxy Camera has a 21x optical zoom lens and 16-megapixel rear-illuminated CMOS sensor. And it sports a massive 4.8-inch screen, the same size as the Samsung Galaxy S3 and dwarfing any other compact camera or dSLR screen.
Would you give a 3G camera a shot? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.