Samsung GT-M8910 Pixon 12 cameraphone

One of the other things Samsung is shouting about on the camera front is the Fast Shoot mode. This takes nine shots in very quick succession. Sadly the resolution is reduced to 640 x 480, which makes it fairly useless really. Video capture runs to 720 x 480 pixels and it made a good fist of that quite challenging moving image, the boiling kettle.

The Xenon flash gives it the edge for party snaps

The camera offers 5x digital zoom, and this is actually more useful than is often the case on cameraphones. There is degradation when you use zoom but you may be able to live with the results depending on what you are photographing and why you want the picture.

You can toy with photos on the phone itself using a fairly wide range of tools. Dynamic Canvas lets allows drawing directly onto photos and Photo Eraser lets you mark out an area of a picture that isn’t exactly removed seamlessly, but looks a bit rough with bits missing. Editing done, you can upload directly to Facebook, Picasa, Flickr or Photobucket. And you can print too, either through a USB to PC connection or via Bluetooth.

Samsung has thought about the looks and handling of the Pixon 12 as a cameraphone. When viewed from the back the handset has a very camera-like look. There is a faux leather section on the bottom end of the chassis, which we suppose is meant to be some sort of grip, though in fact it would need to extend further up the chassis to be of great use.

The 480 x800 resolution, 3.1in active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED) touchscreen is bright, sharp and up there with the best of them. It’s ideal for image viewing and a whole lot more. The media browser is rather well thought out. Twenty thumbnails are visible on screen at once, fingerpanning through full screen images is supported of course, and video is stored alongside images, so it is easy to find what you want from one central location.

The screen displays 20 thumbnail images for swift gallery browsing

Other stuff going on with the camera includes object tracking. You can tap the screen to ensure that whatever object you want remains at the centre of focus and exposure settings. It works but you have to move the handset around quite slowly for the tracking to keep your object in sight. Smile and blink detection are also here, as is beauty shot which purports to adjust exposure to help make skin look good. All three are a bit gimmicky, and more useful is the range of scene and shooting modes.