Samsung PL60 review

Does no frills equal no thrills with this model?

Samsung are making good headway in the compact market with some unique innovations. However, Samsung’s PL series is more of a no frills point and shoot range, offering a lower price point. At less than £100 the PL60 is a widely affordable compact.

Samsung pride themselves on polished and stylish products and the PL60 is certainly no exception. It comes in four striking metallic colours and looks great for the price. But how do the camera’s features measure up in the already crowded budget compact market?

It is small enough to fit into a clutch bag or pocket, although is wider than most modern compacts. The depth of the camera body deceptively makes it appear to use AA batteries rather than a lithium one. Overall, build quality is sturdy but the lens feels very delicate so a case is recommended.

The back of the camera is cleanly laid out with well marked controls. Zoom controls are in a convenient place and the extra thickness of the camera makes it comfortable to hold and use. Space has been utilised well with shortcuts added wherever possible. The D-pad control shortcuts to the flash, self-timer and macro mode, and also allows you to change the display set-up.

Having a menu dial gives you control to change shot settings quickly and easily. There are settings to suit an absolute beginner right through to the more intermediate photographer. Using the scene mode you are given 12 various everyday scenes to select from. Alternatively you can let the camera decide by using the smart-auto mode. If you like a little more control over your shot settings then there is a program setting available to set up custom shooting preferences.

This compact is bursting with portrait features like smile shutter, self-portrait, and face and blink detection. Beauty shot mode even offers post-shot processing to smooth skin tones although not always convincingly.

Samsung still have a way to go making intuitive and accessible menu systems but they improve every time. There are certainly easier cameras than this to operate as it suffers a little from packing too many features into what is essentially a beginner’s compact.

With that said an onscreen photo help guide is offered to beginners so they can reference common problems with compact shooting and get a solution. It is also a great way for a beginner to get more involved with shooting and broaden their photography skills.

The PL60 has been pushed into the sports photography area. Image stabilisation and motion focus have been dramatically improved from its predecessor. Continuous shooting is a welcome addition with these new improvements being made.   

Quick startup, responsive focus and zoom are key in a compact and this ticks all the boxes. Image quality in daylight is superb for a camera in this price range. Although it’s over-sensitive shutter can at times be annoying. Low light can really hinder the overall performance of this camera but a lot of budget compacts fall at the same hurdle. There have been features built-in to improve higher iso shots, but they often don’t feel worth the hassle for the results on offer.

Viewing images can be laborious as the camera can be slow at loading the high-resolution images. The screen is not particularly big but due to slow performance is mainly used for menus and composing shots.

Using the digital zoom will seriously reduce image quality but with up to 5x optical zoom at your disposal it is rarely needed. However, optical zoom does restrict the other end of the focal length. Only being able to shoot macro from 10cm is a shame with the image quality being so good.

Battery life on this model is great for an intense day of shooting and the in-camera charge system makes it extremely portable. The charger is connected to a removable usb lead so can be used for both transferring images and charging.

Video is the biggest drain on the battery and at 640 x 480 for video is not particularly impressive but will be suitable for video upload sites.

A lot of useful and easy to use features all bundled into a tidy, affordable camera that most importantly takes good pictures.