Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom Pro Reviews

Samsung has created an interesting smartphone/digital camera combination with the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which offers full operational capabilities in both areas. This model is quite a bit thicker than what you'd find with your typical smartphone, which makes it a little tough to quickly pull the S4 Zoom out of a pocket to answer a call. And the Galaxy S4 Zoom costs a lot more than mid-level point-n-shoot cameras with similar photographic features. However this combination of a fully functioning smartphone and digital camera is rarely seen, providing a nice hybrid for the person who needs more photographic power and image quality than the typical smartphone provides.

Ultimately the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom isn't quite good enough in either the imaging department or as a phone to persuade phone users or photographers to use it. While the idea sounds great on paper, it hasn't panned out in reality, at least in this first-generation product...

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is an interesting hybrid Android smartphone and camera, but it won't be a practical replacement for both devices for most people.

There will be a group of people that really like the Galaxy S4 Zoom, cling to it, and defend it rigorously. It will have a cult following. But like the Galaxy Cam, it’s kind of a strange tweener product. It’s too bulky and slow to be a great Android phone, but too restrained in image quality and optics to be a fantastic professional camera. At $100 with a two-year AT&T contract or $550 alone, it’s not super expensive for a high-end smartphone, but it costs hundreds more than a comparable point-and-shoot. So, you could spend $550 on this uncomfortable merger of phone and camera, or you could pay $230 for a Canon PowerShot ELPH 110 HS, $180 for a Motorola Moto G, and $1.70 for a roll of Scotch Tape. The PowerShot is a better PAS than the Zoom, and the Moto G is a more powerful phone. So for $411.70, plus tax, you can buy yourself a nicer camera phone. Splurge $350 on the Nexus 5 and you’re in for a treat.

The Galaxy S4 Zoom is clearly the product of months of tweaking, collaboration and research at Samsung, but there's much work still to be done. We love that this year's model is a bona fide smartphone, in that you can use it to not only share images moments after they're captured from just about anywhere on the globe, but you can also make traditional phone calls without any hassle. We also see potential when it comes to Android running on a point-and-shoot, but for now, the drawbacks of sluggish performance and poor battery life far outweigh the benefits. We're very eager to get our hands on Samsung's Galaxy NX mirrorless model, though. So, should you take the plunge now? If your contract has expired and you're stepping up from a low-end Android handset with a small screen, you may very well fall in love with the Zoom. But if you're considering a lateral move from one of this year's top performers, you're not going to be very happy here. Instead, consider adding a WiFi-equipped point-and-shoot, or sticking to the tried-and-true method of popping out an SD card or attaching a USB cable whenever you're ready to transfer. If you're willing to give Windows Phone a try, you may also want to hold out for the Nokia Lumia 1020, though the jury's still out on image quality there. Instant access is phenomenally convenient, but if you care about performance and accuracy, there simply isn't an Android camera yet that we can recommend.

It’s time to draw our conclusion: regardless of how much Samsung would like you to believe otherwise, we think that the Galaxy S4 Zoom is a camera with a phone slapped on it, rather than a Galaxy S 4 (with which it has nothing in common) with a zoom lens. This is definitely a device you want to get if you are into a gadget that delivers everything phone and camera. There are, of course, other solutions out there. The big brother, the Galaxy S 4, the main competitor, the HTC One, are also great camera solutions, not to mention Windows Phone with its Lumia 1020. If you decide to go with the GS4 Zoom, you won’t be disappointed.

Samsung is making a name for itself as a company that isn't afraid of trying new things. It kick-started the phablet market with its successful Galaxy Note and now it may be about to do the same for the Android-powered cameras. Yes, the Galaxy S4 zoom looks weird, but so did the Note not too long ago. The Galaxy Camera has yet to report stunning sales numbers (9 months since launch) and the Galaxy NX might be too pricy to risk it. The Galaxy S4 zoom, however, lets you be an early adopter without a huge investment. At worst, you have a nice point-and-shoot with phone calls and data. At best you have the future. Now.

We can fully recommend the Galaxy S4 Zoom as a smartphone. Despite the, at least in theory, average performance of the Exynos 4212 dual-core SoC of our review unit, it can convince us with high performance in real life scenarios and the smooth operation. Other features are the high build quality, the excellent Super AMOLED display (high contrast and very bright) as well as the decent battery runtimes. The discussion about potential benchmark tuning by the manufacturer (we reported) leaves a somewhat bitter taste in regard to the benchmark results. The performance of the Galaxy S4 Zoom as a compact camera is however not completely convincing. We would have been enthusiastic about the picture quality with every other smartphone, but that does not really carry over to Samsung's camera smartphone. Ultimately, the orientation of our review unit is to blame for that. Samsung advertises the Galaxy S4 Zoom as a real compact camera, but then it would have to be on another level compared to smartphone cameras. No question, the quality is excellent for a smartphone, but the Galaxy S4 Zoom cannot keep up with a real compact camera for 500 Euros (~$663). All in all, you really have to make up your mind if the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is worth buying. Anyhow, we have to give the manufacturer credit for the yet unrivaled concept to combine a smartphone with a real compact camera.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is available for around £425 in black or white - and is certainly unique in offering optical zoom and a "proper" camera in a smartphone, however it comes at a price, due to the bulk of the lens unit. You could also buy a Samsung WB30F or similar 10x optical zoom camera that would be smaller than this, letting you buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini for £200, or a Galaxy S4 Mini for £325 if you didn't mind having a separate phone and camera. You can also get the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom free as part of a contract, and for those that don't mind the bulk and weight of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom this could be a good option, particularly if you just want to carry around one device. As with most smartphones, you'll need to charge the camera daily, and you should get 24 hours use from it depending how much you use it and whether you are shooting with GPS and flash switched on. With a real Xenon flash, and optical zoom, for most people who want better photos from their smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom will deliver impressive results, most likely better than any smartphone with just an LED flash. However, for photographers who's priority is image quality, then a dedicated camera will give better results.

After taking four of seven rounds, the Nokia Lumia 1020 comes out on top as the best camera phone in the land. Not only is the 1020′s design less obtrusive than the bulky Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom’s, but Lumia’s camera performance is head and shoulders above the Zoom’s, too. And with a battery that won’t leave you flat when you need it, the Nokia Lumia 1020 is a winner in our book.

It's almost impossible to score the Galaxy S4 Zoom. It is such a niche product. £400 buys you either not much phone or a lot of camera. Actually, it buys you both. But whether that makes it a good deal depends on your needs: do you want a superzoom camera that can make calls and send and receive emails? If so this is the phone/camera for you. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

A cracking phone and camera combination; not the best of both worlds, but a fantastic bargain

On paper, the Zoom has all the elements of a really great smartphone: a recent Android version, hardware goodies like a fast processor, and the advanced camera. But the whole is less than the sum of its parts, and the Zoom's bulky shape is enough to be a deal breaker. Also, if don't need quite as much photographic control, the Lumia 1020, Galaxy S4, and iPhone 5 are the slimmer, more practical picks that don't sacrifice much in terms of quality. In many cases, in fact, the Lumia 1020 surpasses the Zoom. On the other side of the spectrum, Samsung's Galaxy Camera NX lures advanced photographers with its LTE or Wi-Fi connectivity and some seriously promising imaging chops for new device buyers. That said, if you're undeterred, the question of the Zoom will come down to carrier availability (sometime in the fourth quarter for U.S. users) and price.

As a phone the S4 Zoom has us equally as charmed as the S4 Mini - it's snappy, great to use, has plenty enough power and is a decent size. As a camera the S4 Zoom performs like a reasonable 16MP, 10x optical zoom compact camera too. Married together and the potential of both sides opens up: there's no need to switch between two products so no waste of precious bag or pocket space, while using apps, snapping shots and sharing on the go are just a few finger taps away. But it's the S4 Zoom's design - something that we're not sure any phone with a protruding optical zoom could ever quite pull off - that throws all those positives into disarray. It pushes and pulls between a great concept and an impossible delivery: the Galaxy S4 Zoom is a phone first and foremost. With that in mind it's the physicality of the optical zoom that makes holding and using it like a phone just plain weird; it's too much of a design compromise for it to feel like a phone should. If it was billed as a Galaxy Camera Mini we might have a different stance. But it isn't, this is an S-series, and due to that we feel it's S-eriously short of the mark.

While we’ve found this device to be taking one of several awards home for most unique device in Samsung’s most recent collection of smart devices, it’s not necessarily the best device for any one use-case. While we expected the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom to take the place of the Samsung Galaxy Camera, instead we’ve found it to be another entry point for new users to get in on the smart device universe through Samsung’s flavor of Android.The Galaxy S4 Zoom connects well with the rest of the most recent collection of Samsung Galaxy S 4 devices, it’ll be interesting to see how it fares in the market with little to no direct competition. Stay tuned as we see what US mobile carriers think of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom in coming weeks, and if they’ll give it as much faith as they did the Galaxy Camera.

The minute you hold the Galaxy S4 Zoom, it becomes clear that Samsung has done more of a compact camera with phone functions, rather than a cameraphone conceived from the ground up with mobility in mind. It is quite bulky because of the 10x zoom lens, and uncomfortable to operate with one hand, picture-taking included. The photos and videos are as good as you'd expect from a decent compact point-and-shoot camera, though they still secede the results from the giant sensor inside the Nokia 808 PureView, which can be considered somewhat of a competitor for shutterbugs, albeit with the aged Symbian and much weaker zoom capabilites. Moreover, apart from the ultimate convenience of having both a Xenon flash and optical zoom, the S4 Zoom is a pretty good Android midranger, too, so when your next vacation comes, and you gear up for a lot of pictures, you might want to take just that bulky handset with you, instead of carrying two separate devices. Oh, and if you have to have a convergence phone/camera device with optical zoom for whatever daily reason – well, nothing can rival the chubby S4 Zoom then, and Samsung has priced it pretty well to boot, just slightly above its S4 Mini blood brother, throwing in the whole camera part for cheap.