Samsung NV7 Review

Review Date: November 22nd 2006

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Conclusion

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-Use	4
Image Quality	3.5
Value for Money	3

The new NV series represents Samsung's bid to grab a large slice of the digital compact camera market, a stepping stone to eventually becoming one of the top 3 players, and therefore competes with the likes of Canon, Sony and Kodak. The Samsung NV7 is a premium-level product that is both well made and well thought out, with a unique menu interface that makes the camera easier to understand and navigate than a conventional system. The Samsung NV7 really does look and feel different to most other cameras out there and is superbly designed and built. The 7x zoom lens opens up a wealth of photographic opportunities and is coupled with an effective image stabilisation system, although that fact that its turned off by default whenever you power-down the camera is puzzling to say the least. So, as with the NV10 that we reviewed a couple of weeks ago, the Samsung NV7 offers a truly unique user experience, but sadly the images that it produces do not match the high quality of the rest of the camera. Thankfully the purple fringing problem that plagued the NV10 has been largely cured on this camera, but the NV7 is still as noisy, with even the slowest speed of ISO 100 displaying some noise. The image stabilisation system compensates for this to some extent, in that you can set the camera to ISO 100 and use slower shutter speeds than normal, but Samsung really needed to come up with a better sensor than the one in the NV7. It's a real shame, as the NV7 is otherwise very enjoyable to use and a genuine breath of fresh air. If you can live with the noisy images, then we can just about recommend the Samsung NV7.

PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Samsung NV7 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.

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