Review: Samsung’s NX Mini treads fine line between smart phones and dumb cameras

€479

Hands up how many people still carry a camera with them on a night out? How about special occasions? How about ever? It’s a dwindling number compared to just a few short years ago.

The point and shoot camera market may not be dead, but it has certainly taken a hit in recent years as cameras in phones have improved dramatically. The convenience, coupled with the ability to share images instantly and improving quality, has meant the smartphone works as most people’s primary camera.

But all is not lost; camera makers have simply been adapting.

Samsung has been making its move on the camera market for some time, but one area where it really stands out is with smart cameras. If this has passed you by, smart cameras are a hybrid of smart phones and cameras, taking some of the best elements of both and mixing them to make a better device.

That means better quality images than your phone, thanks to the improved optics in the lens, decent zoom and connections to share images instantly with friends and family on services such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or through email.

The Samsung NX Mini is one of the latest to emerge from Samsung’s smart camera range. With an effective resolution of 20.5 megapixels for still images and high definition video, the camera covers all eventualities.

The good

The NX Mini is a good combination of convenience and power. It’s slim enough to fit in your pocket; on the other, interchangeable lenses and quality of the resulting images are worthy of any decent point and shoot camera. It’s easy to carry but doesn’t leave you stuck with one focal length or lens type, which puts it ahead of most slim cameras and will give you better images than your camera phone.

You can connect your camera to a compatible smartphone or tablet to share photos through NFC, back them up to cloud services such as DropBox or Flickr, or share via email. Turning on autoshare will back up your images to your tablet or smartphone as you take them.

On the rear of the camera is a three-inch LCD viewfinder, which is touch enabled. It has a dual function, flipping 180 degrees so you can take self-portraits, which like it or not has become a must for the “selfie” generation. You don’t even have to press a button; the shutter can be triggered with a wink and gives you a two second warning before it takes the shot. This function works only if the camera is at eye level.

There are also several different modes from which to choose, covering everything from fully automatic to manual. Smart modes cover the usual: landscape, children, long exposures and sunset, as well as those that appeal to social media, such as beauty face or food. Fully manual mode delivers greater control over your images, from setting your own ISO to shutter speed.

The bad

Although the camera has 2GB of internal memory, you can’t use this for saving photographs. Instead, you’ll have to shell out for a micro SD memory card, or else you’ll find you can only view the last image you shot, you can’t store it in the camera’s memory, and most of the wifi sharing functions require the card too. It’s not really a deal-breaker though.

At €479 the NX Mini is pricey, before the expense of interchangeable lenses. But it qualifies for Samsung’s trade-in deal, which can net you a nice cash-back windfall depending on the model of camera and lenses you trade in against it.

The rest

The NX Mini charges through micro USB, which means you’ll never be short of a power cable, with a decent battery life on it, and it also has a mini HDMI port so you can connect it to the TV and watch your movies on a large screen.

In among the modes on the camera you’ll find the ability to use the camera as a baby monitor, which makes it even more useful. You can also hook up your smartphone to the camera and use it as a remote viewfinder, which is a handy little feature.

The verdict

Worth considering if your phone’s camera just does not cut it. ****