Samsung’s SMX-F30BPis touted as a flash-based camcorder with 16 GB of memory. The device itself is a bright silver colour and looks lively. The build quality of the finish is also good and the camcorder looks rounded without any sharp edges. The LCD is not as good as we’d expect from Samsung, but it's better than the unit of the DX205. Sadly there’s no variable zoom (one feature we really loved on the other units) and the camcorder tends to zoom too quickly – this is bad. Although this camcorder isn’t exactly compact, the record button is too close to your hand, which is uncomfortable. Interestingly, the palm grip swivels to a vertical alignment. Since the default grip works best, we don’t know what Samsung was thinking – with the grip vertically aligned it's actually a lot more uncomfortable.

The mode button to select between record, capture and play is well located and easy to use. The absence of an auto-focus means that images are a basic function. Video quality indoors was poor; in fact there was considerable loss of detail with the noise that crept into nearly the entire video. Outdoor shooting was much better, although only until you start to use the zoom. Once the zoom is used, the digital image stabilisation (DIS hereon) kicks in and quite frankly does not do much. We prefer OIS much better, DIS does not compensate for regular body movements and the resulting jitter is very evident from the videos. Maybe we’re nitpicking, because we tested the excellent HD camcorders first, but saying its performance could have been better is a gross understatement.

We weren’t impressed until the point we saw its price. At Rs. 16,900, the SMX-F30BP is the dream come true for someone looking at their first foray into the world of camcorders. Sure it’s far from the best around, but for the price, it's good value for money.
 

Samsung’s SMX-F30BPis touted as a flash-based camcorder with 16 GB of memory. The device itself is a bright silver colour and...