A great little camera at a good price.

Author's Rating:

Pros: excellent photos,many operator selectable settings, price, size

Cons: no lens cover, battery consumption

The Bottom Line: 
A great little camera for anyone who wants photos for most situations. the price is right and it is easy to use. not professional quality though.

Author's Review
I wanted a small, light digital camera that had high enough resolution that I could make nice prints if I wanted. The camera would be mostly for my wife who has a quilting business and often times must email pictures to clients. I also wanted the ability to focus macro. From using other digital cameras, I determined that I wanted it to have a minimum of 2-megapixel resolution. I chose the Samsung Digimax 201 after comparing features and price. Found it at Walmart for $138.

In the box:
Two alkaline batteries, a black pouch with belt loop and a Velcro closure, a USB cable, two glossy covered 119 page paperback manuals (one in English and one in Spanish), A warranty card, a wrist strap, a CD-ROM with drivers and software from Samsung, A CD-ROM editing software by ArcSoft and provided by Walmart and the camera itself.

A nice packing job using recycled molded paper as packing material.

Features/controls:
The little camera has a nice blend of features, a 2x digital zoom but no optical zoom. A very bright and clear LCD monitor which allows you to monitor camera status and settings. An optical view finder. Self-timer. Movie clip feature, white balance with 5 options, 3 resolution settings, 3 size settings, flash with 5 options, auto shut off with user selectable time. 8 meg of internal memory, expandable with SD memory cards. The black pouch is small enough and easy enough to use that I did not mind putting it on my belt, about twice as big as a pager, Not that geeky (I guess).

Using the camera:
Intuitive to use, pretty much a point and shoot camera. I purchased a 32meg SD card when I bought the camera. Set at the highest quality with medium sized pictures, I can take 62. The mode dial surrounds the shutter button. You can select, still image, playback, movie clip or camera setup. The icons make sense. I wanted a camera that can take macro image. The macro function on most cameras is more a close up function, this camera, I believe, is no exception. The specs say that in macro, it can focus from .18 meter to .25 meter. I found that I can take pictures as close as about 5 inches in good light when set to macro, which is fine for my needs. It also has a portrait and normal mode. The controls are easy to use. The back of the camera has a LCD button that allows you to minimize the information displayed on the LCD or turn it off. A nice feature which allows you to extend battery live if you don't mind using the optical view finder. Battery consumption is on the high side. After taking 62 pictures, downloading them and then heading out to take some more, the battery indicator will warn you that you will need to change batteries soon. Though the manual does not refer to using NiMH batteries, I plan to try them. Also on the back is a menu button that activates the menu. Also on the back is a four-function switch. This switch accesses the routine functions of the camera. It works better than similar switches I have used on other cameras. Samsung has eliminated the center push OK or set function, which is selected by rocking the switch to the right. Others I have seen require you to push the switch in the center, which sometime gets an accidental selection of one of the choices at the perimeter.

I like:
The quality of the photos. The ability change white balance and flash options, 3 quality and size settings, the mode switch, the four function switch, the size which seems smaller than my wife’s 35mm Olympus Stylus. easy to download pictures. Low light warning, selectable shutter speed.
I don’t like:
The flash and white balance settings don’t remain when the camera powers off. Say you go to a car show and you set the white balance for the lighting at the show and the flash for fill. If you wait too long between shots and the camera shuts down, these settings go back to auto which will work, but may not be optimum. No lens cover. No quick follow up shot, the camera takes a couple of seconds to process the shot you just took before you can take the next. The CD-ROM that I received with my camera was faulty and would not load in any CD drive I tried. The manual says that with windows 98, you will need to use this software to load drivers so you can download your pictures. Also on the CD is image viewing software and photo editing software as well as a link to the Samsung website. I called the toll free number which is on a sticker glued to the front of the manual in an after thought manner. A human answered the call and was very polite and helpful. Despite the manual not mentioning it, the camera is actually a plug and play. You connect it and turn it on and the driver loads. After following the instructions on the screen, your computer recognizes the camera as a removable drive. I just transfer pictures from the camera to a file I set up in my pictures. Then I can use either the ArcSoft editing software provided by Walmart and included in the box, or some other program. The camera uses the JPEG format, which may not be the best for picture quality, but is convenient for sharing photos. The picture quality is still quite good. Since I still have not received a functional CD-ROM from Samsung, I cannot tell you about the other software that comes with the camera.

Overall, I am very happy with the camera. I recommend it for someone who wants a camera that is simple to operate, and takes good quality photos. A good beginner camera and the price is right.