I may have received a defective camera but here's my experience. Researched hard to find this value with 3.0" LCD, 10.1mp, 5x optical zoom and was hoping the 2AA batteries would last a while.
I'm a big fan of reading consumer reviews such as this, but because camera is brand new reviews were limited. A selling feature for me was that it runs on 2AA batteries so it's easy to work with if battery runs out while at Disneyland. Camera arrived with 2 Ultra Duracell AA batteries included - after testing camera by taking about 10 pictures w/flash these batteries were dead. No problem, batteries must be defective, put in another set of batteries -after about 15 or so pictures these were dead also. During testing I turned camera around to take a picture of myself and the red "red eye" light came on - and stayed on. The camera was froze with the red light on and I was unable to turn it off no matter what buttons I pushed. I had to remove the batteries and reinsert to turn light out then it was OK. I repackaged the camera and am returning it. I'm out a 10% restocking fee, Fedex shipping and time and effort involved.
I'm anxious to give products a positive review but there were serious problems with my Samsung S1050. The 20 or so pictures I took turned out OK but nothing impressive compared to my 4.0mp camera. Again, my camera may have been defective and it's a new model but before buying another camera I'll make sure it has numerous solid positive consumer reviews such as the Canon SD750 has before buying.

I just received this camera on yesterday and played with it for a few hours. I took several pictures inside that turned out beautiful. I loaded them to my computer just to see the difference between this camera and my older camera and the there was a huge difference. I also played with the zooming and found it excellent.

I highly recommend this camera if you are interested in a ten mp camera with great zooming qualities. I also enjoyed using the face recognition feature. I took several pictures using the other options on the camera but I found the auto feature the best thus far.

I did a great deal of previewing of the current crop of digital cameras before this Samsung S1050.

Some of the selling points for me, were the high MP, the higher quality movie encoding, and the large LCD screen.

There is a good level of detail in the photos, the colors are true to life, and the portability of the camera is decent. The skies were less grainy than with some digital cameras, a common problem.

The movie mode could be better, but it is better than the average for a digital camera.

The large LCD screen is great for shots of smaller moving subjects.

Please note: You will need high powered NIHM rechargable batteries for this camera, as with most higher end cameras and especially as the S1050 takes only two batteries. I recommend buying four high powered NIHMs, and a recharger that can handle four batteries at a time, that way you'll always be ready for a shot.

I just purchased this camera last week. I shopped long and hard and visited every website on photography that ever existed, plus every brick-and-mortar photography store in town. I selected it b/c I wanted a pocketable camera w/some decent zoom, more megapixels (my old one has 7), a bigger LCD screen, that would still take SD cards and AA batteries (getting rarer and rarer). I did actually buy it from Amazon, b/c it was nearly the best price -- and it didn't seem worth saving ten bucks to buy from some random website I'd never heard of.
So far, the pictures have been fantastic, and under some difficult shooting situations (like my daughter's play, where she's moving about onstage and I'm in a dark auditorium). I'm no photography expert, just a mom who wants great pictures of her kids, and vacations, and some "artsy" stuff as well. My mom (who generally shoots great pics) and I took pics in the same situation (the play), and hers were a blurry mess w/her year-old Nikon Coolpix L-something. The Samsung's Anti-Shake Reduction technology really makes the difference.
Even the video seems like pretty good quality.
Some small complaints:
--The batteries do run out fairly fast (but not 10 pics as previously reviewed), so always carry spares and invest in rechargeables if you haven't already!
--The real manual is on CD only, which is annoying -- I don't want to print out 102 pages; it is too much to ask for THEM to do it? But whatever. A small basic one is included, to get you started.
--The measurements listed on every single website are just wrong. They don't include "protrusions", and so what good is that? The protrusions are indeed THERE! So I painstakingly measured the camera (when in between sixteenths I rounded up), and here are the REAL measurements:
W: 4 3/16 in. H: 2 9/16 in. D: 1 3/4 in
So, overall, I really like it a lot so far. I would have given 4.5 stars if that were an option, but I rounded up b/c one of the previous reviewers was so low!

I am a novice photographer with some photo experience, and no experience with a digital point and shoot (past camera was an old 35mm Canon AE-1).

After searching for a few weeks looking at reviews and prices I purchased this camera, and am pretty happy. I looked at many 6-8MP editor's pick camera's from CNET and most of them were close to the same price as this one.

Thanks to the lone dissenter in the review section concerning battery life. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have bought this camera. I am happy I did.

I just received the camera today and played with it for a couple of hours, so I will write another review in a few weeks.

This camera does eat batteries, but not at the rate previously described. I inserted the batteries and played with it for about two hours changing settings, powering on and off, and taking photo's with the flash on. It would probably last for about 40-70 photo with flash and no settings changes. This is just a guess though, no way of knowing until I do more shooting.

I chose this camera because my fiance is wary of cameras with too many settings and I want to be able to control every aspect of the camera when I want to. This camera will do both and everything in between.

Zoom is awesome on this camera, you could be in the back of a school auditorium and still zoom for a normal looking photo. Pictures look great, although I have yet to print one. Macro mode is super cool, although it is very hard to keep the camera from shaking at such high zooms. It could just be me being shaky, but it is noticeable.

All and all I'm really satisfied.

If your planning on buying this camera look around for the package deal here on amazon. I got the camera, a case, a mini tripod, a 2GB card, a 5 in 1 card reader, a cleaning kit, screen protectors, rechargeable batteries with a charger, an extended 3 year warranty, and 25 free photo's for only 261 bucks including shipping. The charger isn't the hottest (takes sixteen hours) but all the rest is good. I suggest the sony BCG-34HVE4, it comes with a car adapter and 4 batteries, and only takes 3-5 hours to charge.

Long review I know, thanks for reading...hope it helps. Good luck in your hunt for a camera. Mine is finally over.

I received this camera four days ago. It ate the batteries it came with in under an hour. I replaced them with 2 brand new Energizer Lithium AAA batteries (which had lasted for years of use in my prior digital camera) and went out to take some test shots. The Lithium batteries lasted two days. This camera doesn't have a view finder just an energy hogging over sized LCD screen. On my last camera I seldom if ever used the LCD screen because it decreased battery life so much. This camera doesn't have that option so it seems that to use it I'll have to invest in hundreds of dollars worth of batteries to make it be of any use over the course of a year.
Image quality is so so. It is on par but no better than my prior MP camera. The manual does not seem to include any way to tell the camera to take high quality 10 mega pixel pictures rather than the medium quality 7 mega pixel images it seems determined to take. You can edit the pictures on the camera itself... doing so will eat the batteries but you can do it.
In past experiences when I've tried using rechargeable batteries I've found that a charge didn't last as long as a new set of alkaline throw away batteries and Lithium Batteries lasted far longer than either of the prior options. Lithium batteries cost about $9.95 for two AAAs though so consider battery costs when choosing this camera.

I received this camera and returned it within a week. It ate the batteries it came with in under an hour. I replaced them with 2 brand new Energizer E2 Lithium AA batteries (which had lasted for years of use in my prior digital camera) and went out to take some test shots. The Lithium batteries lasted two days. This camera doesn't have a view finder just an energy hogging over sized LCD screen. On my last camera I seldom if ever used the LCD screen because it decreased battery life so much. This camera doesn't have that option so it seems that to use it I'll have to invest in hundreds of dollars worth of batteries to make it be of any use over the course of a year.
Image quality is so so. It is on par but no better than my prior MP camera. The manual does not seem to include any way to tell the camera to take high quality 10 mega pixel pictures rather than the medium quality 7 mega pixel images it seems determined to take. You can edit the pictures on the camera itself... doing so will eat the batteries but you can do it.
In past experiences when I've tried using rechargeable batteries I've found that a charge didn't last as long as a new set of alkaline throw away batteries and Lithium Batteries lasted far longer than either of the prior options. Lithium batteries cost about $9.95 for two AAAs though so consider battery costs when choosing this camera.
I gave up on this camera and returned it. I opted for a "Kodak Z712 IS" and I'm glad I did. I took the same pictures I did with this camera as well as about 20 more. It didn't eat even one set of batteries and the greater image detail that showed up in the Kodak pictures that were twins of the Samsung was so much better it made me laugh.
I learned my lesson though: Optical zoom is what counts, digital zoom is a joke.
And the three star review? That was before I gave up, returned it and found the Kodak. To bad the star review portion can't be edited. I'd give it one or none now.

After taking a picture in A or M mode it frezees.

You have take out the batteries and reset the camera to
make it work again.

It sucks.

I PURCHASED THIS CAMERA FOR ITS ANTI SHAKE CAPABILITY. IT IS THE BEST CAMERA FOR THE PRICE WITH THESE FEATURES THAT I HAVE TRIED OUT. THE CAMERA SEEMS TO BE PERFORMING AS ADVERTISED. THE ONLY DRAW BACK IS THAT YOU HAVE TO BUY SOME VERY LARGE CAPACITY RECHARAGEABLE AA BATTERIES BECAUSE THE CAMERA DOES USE UP BATTERIES QUICKLY IF STANDARD AA BATTERIES ARE USED. MY PREVIOUS SAMSUNG CAMERA USED A LITHIUM BATTERY WHICH LASTED QUITE A LONG TIME BETWEEN CHARGES. IT WAS A 8.1 MEGAPIXEL CAMERA WITH ABOUT THE SAME SIZE LCD SCREEN AS THE SAMSUNG S1050.

This camera was on sale. I guess it is because of some review who give lower rating. After purchase I was amazed with the performance of the Camera. I took the picture at night without any light. I couldn't believe the picture as if I took in daytime. I don't need big flash any more. This is my third digital camera. All the camera I had ate battery fast. I don't have any complaint about the battery problem. This is the best camera with the best price. I thank you the guys who wrote negative review and give the chance to buy this camera with good price.

This camera has lots of great features, an INCREDIBLY powerful flash, large LCD, takes 10mp pictures AND can be purchased for less than $200. So yes, to get all of that, there is a trade off which is an appitite for power. You must use good quality rechargable AA batteries. If you try to put duracells from your junk drawer in the camera, it will eat them like candy. After reading all the reviews about what a battery eater it was, I bought a second set of rechargables just to have on hand. I bought this camera on a Thursday night and put a set of rechargables in it then. I played with it for a couple of hours on thursday,friday and saturday. Sunday, I took it to the zoo with the family and packed an extra set of batteris just in case. I took over 100 pics and never had to change out the batteries. Monday I took my camera to work and showed several coworkers my pics on my camera before the batteries died. For the features, the quality of pictures, and the price, I don't really mind recharging batteries every 100 pics or so.

Very disappointed with this camera when shooting in low light conditions. Lots of noise when shoting in ISO200 and above.

When shooting indoor, most of the images turns out to be blurr at 1/20.
Anti-Vibrations doesn't seems to improve image blurr.

But in outdoor lighting, photos taken are impressive!

If you don't mind using tripod all the time when shooting indoor, this camera will be fine as it comes with manual control for you to play around with the settings.

This was a really great buy. It is very easy to hold and the pictures are very clear. The screen on the back is great because of the size. I would reccomend this product to anyone.

What a bad camera
I had many cameras and this is the wroste one !
10 megapixels?? i dont think so
A 5 megapixel old camera i had was much nicer then this one
and if you have kids forget about it, its slow faces washes out and blurr problem
dont recommend at all.
i change it for the sony w90 and what a difference !

This is my third digital camera. I have an Canon digicam with a 12x optical zoom but I wanted something pocketable to take on bike rides and around town, so the Samsung is an adjunct rather than a replacement. I didn't want to spend a lot of money but wanted something decent. The Samsung was 1/3 to a 1/4 the price of top brand cameras with similar specifications. The salesman in the electronics superstore sneered and made a disparaging remark when I expressed interest in the Samsung - but I bought it anyway. It exceeds my expectations.

Cons: It is *just* pocketable - lucky I have large shirt and suit pockets. It used the alkaline batteries in the box in about 20 shots but that didn't worry me as I always intended to use hi-capacity nicads. The power usage is to be expected as it has a large screen and runs off two AA batteries.

The symbols on the buttons and multi-function dial are black (same as the plastic case) and impossible to see in dim light. It is reasonably heavy and does weigh down my pockets.

The auto shake reduction is not a true anti-shake system. It merely increases the ISO and hence shutter speed automatically, resulting in higher noise. Still, you can't expect electronic or mechanical shake reduction at this price point.

Pros: The camera feels solid and-well made and is comfortable in the hand, The large 3" LCD takes up most of the back of the camera. The 5x optical zoom is more useful than the usual 3x.

I took identical photos on the Canon and the Samsung. There is no noticable difference between them. Colour rendering and sharpness were perfect. The Samsung in some areas has a greater range of adjustments than the Canon - it is certainly not lacking in manual adjustments. The Samsung doesn't have a panorama function but this is a minor point as you can still take panoramas and use open-source stitching software. It has a macro function that takes photos to within 1 cm of the lens, i.e., actually touching the lens surround. The flash is quite powerful. The tripod mount is metal rather than plastic.

Summary: An excellent camera that takes quality pictures. It's not tiny or especially light but it is particularly good value for money.

This is my first review, although I am a frequent reader. The samsung digimax S1050 is a feature packed camera with everything I wanted. But there are some serious flaws. Primarily the software, it is poorly laid out and extremely volatile, kind of like the blue screen of death. I have developed a loyalty to samsung after a series of excellent products, but I am not blind. I was spoiled by how rock solid canon was, samsung hopefully will offer a flash to fix this. The features severely decreased image quality. Motion control changed 10mp camera into a 1 mp webcam. It had quite a lag for it's autofocus. For point and shoot though, I believe it is one of the best you can get. Seriously I am just pointing out the worst, It doesn't happen all the time.

I loved the look of this camera and the idea that it was 10MP. I hated the photos. Even on a cloudy day ... this camera kept shooting at a shutter speed 40 or 80 which makes for some blurry pictures. In sunlight it was shooting at 120, which isn't bad but I would have expected it to be 250. What really made me return this camera was when I shot my 20th photo the camera started to make sizzling sound. It when on for 10 seconds until I popped out the batteries. When I reincerted them, the sound was gone, but what had happened is it fried my 4GB SD/HC card. Geeezzzz. Bought an Olympus FE-280 instead.

Plenty of battery life with rechargeables. I have had no problems with batteries. Great features and specs for the price. The most surprising is how nice photos with flash look. Even up close results are soft and highlights are not blocked up and washed out. The large viewing area is helpful for eyes which are not as good as they used to be. I would like a viwfinder option, though. This camera doesn't have one.

I bought the camara and with every single picture that I tried to take, the camara will have a problem. Example will shut down or display a low battery sign even thought I tried 2 different sets of new batteries, the lences will no work corectply or the click will get stuck.

Got mine from Woot and received it today. Heard my Blackberry go off with a message from FedEx. Said the package was here. Opened the front door and lo! There it was. The 200 shot Red Ryder BB gun with built in compass and sundial. No wait, I mean the camera. Looked down the street in time to see the FedEx truck turn the corner. Talk about real-time updates.

Brought the package in. It was below freezing outside. Convinced myself to let the package get warmer before opening. Decided after 30 seconds it was warm enough. The camera came in a neat retail box. Everything inside was packaged nicely. Popped in some old rechargables into the camera. Popped the included alkaline batts into my shaver. Perfect. Put in a 2Gb chip and tried to format it. Camera says "format failure". Tried another chip. That one worked. No worries. Took a few test shots.

Indoor pics taken with flash on worked very well. The flash is *bright*. Flash recharge time is about 3-4 seconds. During that time, the screen goes dark and you can't do anything with it. Pictures taken indoors without flash generally turned out well, but a steady hand (or nearby wall to lean against) helps a lot. My old Sony DSC-P92 (5Mpix) did better under similar conditions, tending to choose faster shutter speeds so shake is less of a problem.

With a 2gig chip, the camera reports space for 370+ pictures at the 10 Mpix superfine setting, or 1h 20 min of video at 720x640 @ 30 fps. 2 gig probably works fine under most circumstances. Still, I'd go for the biggest chip I can afford. if you're going on a vacation its nice not to have to worry about running out of memory. I took 500+ pics at 5Mpix when I spent 5 days in Hawaii.

Took it to the park. Pictures outdoors are pretty good. I found the shot-to-shot time a little long when trying to follow the antics of a vigorous subject (read: 2 yr old Aussie Shepard. Tends to move much faster than your average subject. Your mileage may vary).

As a definite and unexpected bonus, I also found this to be a reasonably good video camera. At 720 x 480 @ 30 fps, the video tends towards DV quality. Media Player Classic (part of the K-lite codec pack) says that the video codec is XVID 720x480 30.00fps 1771Kbps, while audio is MS ADPCM 22050Hz mono 88Kbps [Audio 1]. Motion artifacts during a fast pan are noticable if you look for it, but otherwise the image is sharp at native resolution. With almost 100 mins of video recording capability, Samsung is at least within sight of that Holy Grail of digital media devices: good quality still pictures and video in one compact package.

Audio was a little soft. It also cuts off when zooming, presumably so you don't hear the zoom and AF motors humming. When taking video, AF has difficulty catching up during a zoom. The image goes out of focus during the zoom, then comes back into focus when zoom stops.

Transferring images was easy. Windows XP (Vista? Ha!) recognized it as a mass storage device without having to install any drivers. The included cable connects to the camera with something even smaller than a miniUSB plug. The connection was uncomfortably tight. It takes some carefully controlled tugging to pull it out from the camera after transferring pictures. The rubber plug covering the USB port is also little too close and interferes when you try to plug the cable in.

Battery life was decent. I used a pair of 3-year old Duracells rated at 2000mAh. The last time I charged it was 2 weeks ago. It lasted me all afternoon, or about 275 Mb of data, or 78 stills and about 5 mins of video total. It died sometime this evening when I was going through the results. Really people, that's pretty decent batt life.

Something nobody seems to have mentioned: Be careful when opening or closing the battery door. It's held closed by a grey plastic tongue (door part) through a square loop of black plastic or metal (hard to tell). If you break this, you can't close the door, the batteries lose contact, and the camera becomes unusable.

Many reviews have panned the image noise level. You do get noise if you zoom all the way in. However, almost all picture viewing is done either on a display screen or printed out on photo paper. At max res, it works out to about 300 dpi when printing a letter sized picture. dpi goes even higher for smaller prints. Pixel level noise can be difficult to see at this resolution, assuming they even remain as discrete dots on an inkjet.

The average screen does not display all 10 Mpix at native resolution. If you have a halfway decent image viewer, the image is nicely interpolated and scaled to fit the screen. The result becomes spectactular, since the scaled image is effectively supersampled from the original.

Overall, this camera is great for taking casual snaps and videos. It's compact enough that I can take it with me anywhere. I especially like the fact that I can get both decent quality video and stills on one device. Neither are of record breaking quality, but the convenience factor means I'm more likely to bring this than two separate devices. Plus, you can't beat the feature set for a hundred and twenty bucks (Woot). I think was worth what I paid for it.

At first when I read other reviews I was a bit skeptical about this product, I keep looking for similar items an always kept coming back to this one. I Mean 10.5MP and 3"LCD display for less than $200.

The products works fine even with alkaline batteries, though you may consider switching to NiHm for longer battery life. You should take a few minutes to play with all options on the camera so when you using it in public know exactly which option is best for the situation.

Photos are always gorgeous and if you consider that 10.5MP is too large to mail your friends, don't worry... You can always use the option for lower MP's.

I'm already had a Samsung Digital camera, but I like this one so much more, that ended up recommending it to a friend that after just one look enter amazon.com to buy one.

Belief me, it is a great product.

I was very displeased with this camera - possibly the worst digital camera I have personally used. The lens is poor quality, such that my iphone (yes, my IPHONE) takes better pictures. Shake reduction? Uh, no. It was nearly impossible to take clear pictures, and I found the depth of colour lacking. Sure, they might be extremely high resolution, but who needs gazillions of pixels of badness? I've always known that megapixels mean little, but this camera really drove the point home.

In addition to taking very poor quality photos, I found the controls unintuitive - not completely unmanageably so, but annoyingly enough. The flash also doesn't carry very far. The zoom, however, worked pretty well and 5X is more than adequate for a point and shoot at this level. But since the camera is neither that small nor that lightweight, it's not even that portable, and you'd be better off saving up for a GOOD SLR, or going with a cheaper, tinier, better pocket model.

Lastly, and perhaps most frustratingly, this device consumed batteries more hungrily than a river rife with famine-struck piranhas, or perhaps a stoned goat. I'd get about 15 pictures per pair of AA batteries, regardless of battery type used (I tried 3 different sorts). Unacceptable! I will not ever buy another Samsung camera - and I was generally a Samsung fan prior to my experience with this item.

I bought this camera for my daughter for Christmas. I looked at quite a few. I can tell you that this camera takes excellent pictures, has a real nice large display, a nice look and a nice grip/feel to it. ALL the benefits are completely obliterated by the fact that the camera ABSOLUTELY DEVOURS batteries like there's no tomorrow. Buy this camera if you dare but be prepared to "babysit" the batteries for the rest of the cameras life. . The batteries will die UNBELIEVEABLY QUICKLY, predictably and consistently. This fact cannot be underestimated enough. It was a bad investment. To make matters worse, you get a short little abreviated user manual in the box while the website has a complete owners manual detailing every aspect of the camera. I called customer service and the wanted to charge me $20.00 for the book. Another raw deal!

MAN! This is the stuff...great quality pics...also bought a 2gb Sandisk SD card and i was blown away................Cool camera....sleek black look and slightly heavy but makes it up for quality in pics and sexy look...

A 10mp, 5x zoom, 3inch lcd display,super macro mode, program mode, aperture priority, shutter priority, and full manual modes for more creative and advanced shots, all for under $200! This camera is loaded with fun features as well, such as stickers, frames, and different color modes. It takes amazing pictures, especially when using the diffent manual modes. For the price this camera is hard to beat. Reason i did not give it a 5, is due to batteries do not last as long even with rechargables. One more thing for continuous shots is pretty slow.

Samsung S1050 is very affordable yet it's very functional. it has a better picture and video quality as well. i would definitely recommend this product to anyone who doesn't desire high end cameras. I would recommend to use 2500Mah-Ni batteries or higher for longer video recording and picture taking. This digital camera is great and you can take it anywhere in your pocket for any purposes. I have this for a month now and yet I take it to anywhere I go. I can't complain for the quality and price of this product because it's very reasonable and affordable! I love it! sabay ganon eh! hehe..