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[B][SIZE=4]Smartphones are eroding compact camera sales but could Android be the compact camera's saviour?[/SIZE][/B]
[IMG]http://dpnow.com/files/blog/galaxy_camera.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Samsung's Galaxy Android camera has been received enthusiastically[/I]
I can remember early attempts to combine compact camera and mobile phone hardware - LG comes to mind some 4-5 years ago. Such hybrids never made it to the European market and of course this was before the modern smartphone came into being. But that much-used term, convergence, is ever-present and it was inevitable that the desirable elements of a camera and a compact computing device like a smartphone would be combined in a way that goes beyond the size-limited camera capabilities of run of the mill camera phones. Now both Nikon and Samsung have unveiled compact cameras that incorporate major elements of Android smartphone innards and operating software.
The attraction of a smartphone operating system like Android is that it has developed a wide variety of abilities in response to the highly integrated hard ware functionality which the mobile phone industry has evolved. Contemporary smartphones have GPS, accelerometers, orientation sensors, WiFi, Bluetooth, large screens and more. They also have cameras but this is a relative area of weakness in nearly all examples - none have optical zoom lenses because this would make them too big and bulky, for example. While smartphone image quality has improved, it's still fundamentally limited by tiny sensors and optics. But this has been balanced by supreme versatility and convenience - take a picture or a video clip on a smartphone and it can be on a social networking site in seconds - and geo-tagged.
This convenience and the fact that you carry your smartphone with you much more of the time than you carry you conventional camera, has started to hit sales of conventional compact cameras and we are now seeing a double digit percentage in sales decline. So what is the solution to rejuvenate compact camera popularity? You guessed it - have another go at combining the best of compact cameras and smartphones.
Samsung is the largest manufacturer of smartphones thanks to its Galaxy range of handsets and, of course, tablet computers, mainly driven by Google's Android operating system. Samsung is also, of course, a major manufacturer of compact cameras, so it is probably the best placed manufacturer to bring together the two sets of technologies and their first attempt is the Samsung Galaxy Camera.
An inescapable initial impression is that the Galaxy Camera is rather big - it has a screen that is only just smaller than 5 inches diagonally. Most compact cameras have 3 inch screens. The back of the Galaxy Camera is basically one huge touch-sensitive screen. At the front is a telescoping lens that is similar to that of a typical compact camera. And there is a fair-sized hand grip for comfortable camera handling, something that no camera phone can boast.
Taking a picture on a smartphone and, indeed, the Galaxy Camera, is just the start of the fun. Of course you have the huge screen that helps you and your mates to appreciate and enjoy the photos taken more easily. You can process them with your choice of literally hundreds of photo imaging effects and editing apps - many of which are free. You can then upload them to the cloud via dozens of online photo and social networking services.
But that's not all - smartphone development is currently trying to crack that nut of voice interaction. You can't yet have a conversation with your device but it will quite impressively understand commands in single words or even brief phrases. With the Galaxy Camera you can vocally command the camera to trip the shutter when you're taking a self-portrait for example.
The wise-crackers correctly joke that you can't make a phone call with the Galaxy Camera because Samsung left out mobile phone capability. But ironically you can make a video call - just download the Android Skype app and you're away. Indeed, Skype has voice call capability which can connect to phone lines, so you can actually make a phone call with a Galaxy Camera. You can also send and receive emails, browse the web, read digital magazines and e-books, play games - you know where I'm headed.
The Samsung Galaxy Camera is a very interesting first step in the smartphone-inspired compact camera. It's ahead of Nikon's version which makes do with an older version of Android (2.3 Ginger Bread compared to the Galaxy's 4.1 Jelly Bean). But this is just the start and I expect a lot of exciting developments in this area in the not so distant future.
There are Samsung cameras on the market with built-in WiFi. Why hasn't this happened sooner, and to many other small cameras? Taking a decent picture and uploading them directly to the cloud or to a social networking site, or just to external storage, should be a given by now. You can do it with a smartphone, so why not a camera?
Likewise, if you take a photo with your smartphone, you can immediately print it - either via Bluetooth to the Polaroid Pogo/Zink or via WiFi using an app to a regular printer. Why can't we do this with a camera?
If the compact cameras are being eroded by smartphones, then it's because the camera market has stagnated while smartphones have innovated. Sure, the camera on my smartphone leaves an awful lot to be desired (it's only 3.2MP with no flash), but the sheer connectivity and direct printability of it means I'm often using it for convenient snapshots when I should be using my infinitely superior Samsung camera (16MP).