Samsung TL500 review: Samsung TL500

The camera also has a tendency to freeze if you get impatient and start pressing buttons while it's "Processing." I had to pull the battery twice. And, yes, the firmware was current as of this review.

	Canon PowerShot G12	Canon PowerShot S95	Nikon Coolpix P7000	Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5	Samsung TL500
Sensor (effective resolution)	10-megapixel CCD	10-megapixel CCD	10-megapixel CCD	10-megapixel CCD	10-megapixel CCD
	1/1.7-inch	1/1.7-inch	1/1.7-inch	1/1.63-inch	1/1.7-inch
Sensitivity range	ISO 80 - ISO 3200	ISO 80 - ISO 3200	ISO 100 - ISO 3200/6400 (expanded)	ISO 80 - ISO 3200	ISO 80 - ISO 3200
Lens	28-140mm f2.8-4.5 5x	28-105mm f2-4.9 3.8x	28-200mm f2.8-5.6 7.1x	24-90mm f2-3.3 3.8x	24-72mm f1.8-2.4 3x
Closest focus	0.4 inch	2.0 inches	0.8 inch	0.4 inch	2.0 inches
Continuous shooting	1.1fps frames n/a	1.9fps frames n/a	1.1fps n/a	2.5 fps JPEG/n/a raw	1.1fps n/a
Viewfinder	Optical	None	Optical	Optional OVF or EVF	None
Autofocus	n/a Contrast AF	n/a Contrast AF	99-area Contrast AF	23-area Contrast AF	n/a Contrast AF
Metering	n/a	n/a	256-segment matrix	n/a	n/a
Shutter	15-1/4,000 sec	15-1/1,600 sec	60-1/4,000 sec	60-1/4,000 sec	16-1/5,000 sec
Flash	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hot shoe	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
LCD	2.8-inch articulated 461,000 dots	3-inch fixed 461,000 dots	3-inch fixed 921,000 dots	3-inch fixed 460,000 dots	3-inch articulated AMOLED 920,000 dots
Image stabilization	Optical	Optical	Optical	Optical	Optical
Video (best quality)	720/24p H.264 QuickTime MOV	720/24p H.264 QuickTime MOV Stereo	720/24p H.264 QuickTime MOV Stereo	720/30p AVCHD Lite Monaural	30fps VGA H.264 MP4 Monaural
Manual iris and shutter in video	No	No	No	Yes	No
Optical zoom while recording	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mic input	No	No	Yes	No	No
Battery life (CIPA rating)	390 shots	220 shots	350 shots	400 shots	350 shots
Dimensions (WHD)	4.4x3.0x2.0 inches	3.9x2.3x1.2 inches	4.5x3.1x1.8 inches	4.3x2.6x1.7 inches	4.5x2.5x1.8 inches
Weight	14.2 oz	6.8 oz	12.6 oz	9.2 oz	13.1 oz
Mfr. price	$499.99	$399.99	$499.95	$440	$449.99
Availability	September 2010	August 2010	September 2010	August 2010	July 2010

Overall, the TL500 has an attractive, functional design that I like. About the same size as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5, it's a little heavier and just as solidly built. I'm not sure why Samsung's specs choose to exclude the lens from the camera depth, claiming the camera is 30mm (1.2 inches)--essentially as deep as the S95, which it obviously isn't. There's an oddly slippery rubberized grip in the front that I wish were either bigger or smaller; it's not deep enough for comfortable single-handed shooting but not shallow enough to force you to change the way you hold the camera. A horizontal jog dial embedded in the grip controls exposure compensation, shutter speed, aperture, and so on (depending upon mode). It's hard to differentiate the wheel from the grip by feel. That means it's hard to find when you want it, but it's also hard to tell if you've accidentally pressed or turned it. I ended up accidentally shooting a group of photos with the exposure compensation bumped up because of it.

On top there's a typical mode dial with the usual collection of manual, semimanual, and automatic options (dual IS combines electronic with optical image stabilization) along with a not-so-typical drive mode dial with continuous shooting, self timer, and bracketing settings. The small power button sits in the middle.

The back has a traditional control layout, of which the highlight (for me, anyway) is a dedicated metering button. A Fn button pulls up shooting settings such as quality, white balance, and focus area, which you navigate via the scroll dial. The navigation dial doubles as buttons for ISO sensitivity setting, flash, macro, and display settings. The ISO button on the right edge of the camera and the dedicated movie record button under my thumb posed some problems, as I would accidentally hit them while simply holding the camera.

I love the bright, saturated, flip-and-twist AMOLED display, but that's not quite enough to lift the camera's feature rating. It has almost all the essentials--a hot shoe, a screw mount for add-on lenses, and zoom capability during movie capture. For those who care, there's Smart Face Recognition, which allows you to mark up to 12 faces as favorites that then take focus priority when shooting with face-detection enabled. The camera also offers three underwhelmingly implemented effects--miniature, vignette, and fisheye--and a two-shot HDR mode called Smart Range that pulls back some of the highlights that normally get blown out in high-contrast shots. But it lacks the ability to autorotate vertical shots, it only shoots VGA video (though you can zoom), there's no EVF option, and while I'm not a zoom fanatic, the lens is just a little too short. While the camera offers manual focus, it's quite cumbersome to use, nor does it magnify the subject sufficiently to accurately gauge focus. (For a complete rundown of the TL500's features and operation, you can download a PDF version of the manual.)

Conclusions
I really wanted to like the Samsung TL500 more than I did, and if Samsung comes up with an updated version that at least offers better, more consistent image processing and some slight design tweaks it could potentially make a huge difference. And in its current incarnation, it's certainly a solid camera that many people will happily shoot with. But any one of several competitors offers a more compelling option.