Samsung S850

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By Will Greenwald, CNET.com
Jun 15, 2007

On most cameras' mode dials, PASM stands for Program, Aperture priority, Shutter priority, and Manual. They're the four primary shooting modes, besides Auto, that are found on most advanced cameras and don't often show up on a cheaper camera. That's why the Samsung S850 surprised us so much.

Design
The S850 is an 8-megapixel shooter with full manual exposure controls, giving frugal photographers plenty of settings to tinker with. Manual mode even has a convenient onscreen meter that tells you if your photo will be over- or underexposed, an extremely useful tool when tweaking all the settings by hand.

For more details on the S850's design and image quality, click on the image.

Strangely, the camera doesn't have a manual focus setting, forcing you to choose between center and multipoint autofocus. Manual focus would have been nice, but its absence is hardly a surprise; few, if any, low-end cameras offer manual focus.

Whether you're looking at the silver or black version, the first thing you'll notice about the S850 is its prominent lens. Instead of receding into the camera's body as do most compact cameras, the S850's lens protrudes more than half an inch from its body.

It doesn't have the most aesthetically pleasing design, but it's not nearly as ridiculous as the small body/massive lens combinations found in its bigger brothers, the Samsung NV5 and the NV7 OPS. Regardless of appearance, the S850 feels very solid and accessible, with a dense, hard shell and a simple, well-placed control scheme.

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