I have had the v50 for a few months now, and find it very nice. In fact with 2 improvements, it would be almost perfect.

The Good:
- takes good pictures
- takes good video (30fps, 640x480). I have not found a limit in recording time, and have gotten rid of my video camera.
- easy to use and set new modes.
- can set to take 3 photos in about a second.
- comes with a rechargable battery that lasts a long time. I went on a 3 day ski trip with my family, taking all the video and pictures I could, without recharging.
- If the battery does run low, you can pop in normal alkalines.
- Uses low cost sd memory (or mmc, or memory stick)

Less than perfect:
- Unless you pre-focus (buy pushing down half way on the shutter) the shutter delay is roughly 1-2 seconds. Even pre-focus there is roughly 400mS delay (I use the 3 shot mode for action).
- Once you start taking a video, you can not zoom in or out. You must stop and start a new video to change the zoom. I haven't found this a problem, as I rarely shoot one scene for more than a min. or 2.

Summary: A good camera for the money, with lots of good features.

I purchased my first Samsung camera about 6 years ago. It was an auto-zoom 35mm and it had so many features I couldn't even use them all. Everyone raved about the pictures I took. I am convinced it is the Schneider lenses Samsung uses. I wore that camera out and replaced it with the same model with a greater zoom ratio.
When I decided it was time to invest in a digital, there was no question of the brand, only the model. I chose the V50 (it had just been introduced) and I am still getting raves about my photos. Again, I am convinced it is the Schneider lens, but the camera is easy to use. My son loves taking "movies."
I will never purchase another brand--my camcorder is also Samsung.

I bought mine a month ago, and it is a very good acquisition. I already had a 2.0 MP camera and i wanted to upgrade for more detail and the Samsung was the best on its price range. The closest competition came from Sony (Powershot DSCP10, 5.0 Mp) and the Canon A50. Both the Sony and the Canon had smaller screens. And the Sony screen was fixed.

The fun thing is that you could use the V50 as an ordinary pocket camera. Don't open the screen, just select the AUTO mode, look through the viewfinder and press the shutter button.

Or... you could try more complex settings: go into the ASM mode and play with the shutter speed (from 1/2000 to 15 seconds), the focus aperture and the "film" ISO settings.

Night shots will require a tripod, unless you want some "artistic", blurred photos. I've taken some nice pictures of the stars with the maximum exposure time and the focus manually set to infinity.

Pictures taken under daylight conditions look crisp, colorful and reallistic.

Videos are rather good at 640 x 480, but the audio is just average quality. However it can replace your ordinary camcorder if you don't want to carry around too much stuff and only want to record short videos.

This is a great digital camera. The price for it is amazing it being a 5 mp camera with a gazillion features. I recommend this camera to anyone the pictures come out beautiful and perfect and for moms with young ones that just like to jump and not pose for pics its a great camera it has a feature that you put in children mode and even if they are moving it captures the moment perfectly. I was looking for a camera that took quick pictures without distortion and I found the perfect one. The battery life on it is amazing, I go days without charging the lithium battery that comes with it and believe me I use it n use n use it. It takes great movies and for how long you want em depending of the memory card space you have of course. So just get this with a 512 sd card and you are set to go.

the price is reasonable, this camera has some interesting features like aperture priority, speed priority and manual modes, brackening, and exposure lock, manual focus, two slots ( SD and memmory stick duo). cons: it does not have a volume control when reproducing MPEG 4 videos, does not have flash level control and burst feature.

The price VS benefits offer a good result, good display with rotation