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Samsung's 'world's first' camcorder not exactly a breakthrough

The new H-series camcorders are tiny, tiny full HD models that add yet another storage format to the marketplace: solid-state drives. Is this a harbinger of death to hard-disk drive camcorders?

Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice
Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.
Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials
  • More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
Joshua Goldman

Samsung

Samsung is always good for at least one "world's first" product at CES, but I have to say this one is a bit of a "meh" for me. Instead of sticking with simple flash memory for its new line of H series full HD camcorders, the company stuck solid-state drives in them. The HMX-H106, HMX-H105, and HMX-H104 feature 64GB, 32GB, and 16GB SSDs, respectively. (A fourth model, the HMX-H100, gets the features of the other models, but relies on SDHC cards for storage. The SSD models have SDHC slots for memory card storage, too.)

The benefits of an SSD are low heat emission, faster start-up times, no moving parts, and in turn, better battery life. At least in comparison with a typical hard-disk drive model. The larger sizes are nice as well--especially for HD--but the 3 hours of recording time possible with 16GB of storage is plenty.

Samsung camcorder lineup for spring 2009--photos

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As for their other specifications, the H-series models seem well equipped with a 10x optical zoom, 2.2-megapixel sensor, 1/4.5-inch CMOS, 2.7-inch touch-screen LCD, and Samsung's new Optical Image Stabilizer.

The H106 will be available in April 2009. The H105, H104, and H100 will be available in March 2009. No pricing has been announced.