Gadgets and Gizmos

Samsung i8

Samsung’s newly-announced i8 follows the i85 as the latest in the company’s series of digital camera-slash-media players. As a digital camera it seems nondescript, with an 8-megapixel sensor, a 3x optical zoom lens, and a slightly larger-than-usual 2.7-inch LCD screen.

It offers a unique SVGA movie mode at least, giving you the option of shooting 800 x 592 video clips at, Samsung claims, 30 frames per second. If you switch the i8 into PMP (Portable Media Player) mode, though, it really starts to stand out.

The camera is equipped with the Samsung Digital Image Stabilization system and ISO 1600 high sensitivity support so images remain crisp and detailed even without a flash.

The i8 also features Samsung’s Intelligent Face Recognition Technology which detects the subject’s face, automatically adjusts auto focus and auto exposure to ensure better composition and image quality for portraits.

The AF function instantaneously recognizes the faces of subjects and accurately focuses on them before the AE function takes over, setting the appropriate exposure to ensure the highest image quality.

The usual photographic features, including Samsung’s Digital Image Stabilization system and ISO 1600 high sensitivity support, it also boasts an in-built ‘World Tour Guide’ function, which provides instant access to travel information covering 2600 regions in 30 countries.

Photographers can add to the travel info on their camera with downloads from a dedicated website, which can be stored on the camera’s 195 MB of internal memory.

Users can even watch MPEG, AVI, MOV, WMV and ASF files on the LCD, and if you’re in a pinch, you can shoot MPEG-4 video at 800 x 592 resolutions. The new Samsung i8 is available in February at $299 MSRP.