Not all Samsung cameras will use microSD media

Leonard Goh | Aug 20, 2009

Thai celebrity Chompoo with the ST550. (Credit: Leonard Goh/CNET Asia)

Recently, Samsung announced the ST550, ST500 and ST1000. While the cameras' features such as dual LCDs and wireless connectivity options are the main highlights, we noticed the unusual use of microSD media for the trio.

At a recent interview with Samsung's vice president of Marketing Communications (Samsung Digital Imaging), Jeong-Wook Kim, in Bangkok, we enquired if the company would be employing microSD cards for storage in its future shooters.

According to Kim, the decision to use the physically smaller memory format applies to these three point-and-shoots for now. He added that the design and specifications of future cameras will determine the kind of memory cards to be used. From this, we are guessing that the internals of the three shooters are so crammed with components to support features such as dual LCDs (ST550 and ST500) or GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (ST1000), that a more petite storage solution was necessary.

At the launch event, Thai actress Chompoo was the face for the ST550. According to her, the front-facing 1.5-inch LCD was helpful in taking self-portraits with her friends. When we tried it during the Samsung Smart Camera Experiential Tour, this display proved to be as useful as hyped. Some journalists, however, found the face detection to be a tad too sensitive as the ST550 would snap a shot automatically before they could smile. Samsung was quick to assure that the firmware in the cameras we used was not final, hence that could have affected the performance of the shooters.

We will be reviewing the ST550 and ST1000 soon, so check back with us for a more in-depth evaluation. Meanwhile, click on the thumbnails below to see more event highlights.