Hands-on: Samsung Galaxy Camera 2

When Samsung first introduced their Galaxy Camera back in 2012, it was a huge hit and was easily considered the perfect Instagram device at that time. This week at CES here in Las Vegas, Samsung ntroduced the second-generation Galaxy Camera.

The refresh of the Galaxy Camera 2 isn’t that apparent from the exterior — the new one is slightly bigger in size but lighter in weight. Same sensor and optics, including the 21x optical zoom.

What Samsung upgraded are some key hardware features, like a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB on internal storage and bigger battery capacity at 2,000mAh. There’s also the update to Android 4.3 Jellybean. Oh, and there’s NFC now.

There were some cosmetic changes as well but very subtle like additional of silver trimmings and panel, a textured finish (giving it a faux leather look) and a much less plasticky look. It feels smooth and nice, adds better grip on the camera as well as giving it a more premium look.

The TouchWiz UI is still the same as before although we noticed the unit is more responsive and fluid now. We also tried the camera with a few sample shots but had a hard time since the booth around us was poorly lit.

Samsung Galaxy Camera 2 (EK-GC200) specs:
16MP BSI CMOS sensor
Sensor size: 6.17 x 4.55mm (1/2.3-inch)
1.6GHz quad-core processor
2GB RAM
8GB internal storage
ISO Range: 100 – 3200
Optical Zoom: 21x
Focal Length equiv.: 23 – 481mm
Built-in Xenon flash
4.8” S-LCD, 1280×720 @306ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 2
Full HD video recording @30fps
Slow-Motion video, 512p @120fps
LTE (Optional)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
NFC
MPEG-4 or H.264 video format
SD/ SDHC/SDXC
GPS w/ A-GPS and GLONASS support
2,000mAh Li-Ion battery
Android Jellybean 4.3
132.5 x 71.2 x 19.3 mm (dimensions)
283 grams (weight)

We think the upgrades are still incremental and didn’t focus on the camera side but more on the hardware configuration that runs Android. As such, we can’t really say that it’s worth to upgrade to this new model if you’re coming from the old one.

The Galaxy Camera 2 is expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2014 and should be priced in the same range as the original model (a little under Php20k).