Samsung PL90 review

Say goodbye to cables with built in USB

Samsung's PL series is a well established series of smart compacts for beginners in photography. The PL90 is a budget compact with the unique selling point of having a Flip-inspired built-in usb connection. Used for charging directly from a computer and transferring images without the need for additional wires. A nice looking camera with a unique selling point, but how does the rest of the compact measure up.

On the surface there is nothing dramatically different here, a pocketable solid plastic body with metallic finishes on the buttons. You immediately get an idea of what everything does before even switching on the camera. A simple mode menu allows you to switch between the 5 shooting modes available.

The Smart Auto mode recognises a variety of shooting situations and does a decent job at the press of a button. You will notice overexposure in the auto modes but can refine the settings using the pre-defined scene and program modes. The shot settings menu is available at the touch of a button and further shortcuts are offered through the d-pad.

Smart mode on the top plate will switch the camera in to full auto mode. The lack of differentiation between this and the power button will initially quite often leave you pressing the wrong buttons and losing shots as a consequence. This function does work well for passing the camera to someone else to take a quick automatic photo if you are using advanced settings.

Minimum shooting distance is 12cm which is poor considering you only get 4x optical at the other end of the scale. While 4x optical zoom is perfect for most landscape and portrait shot compositions the large macro distance leaves you missing a lot of interesting close up shots. You will often have to shoot and crop later, unfortunately you lose a lot of image quality and detail.

Blink detection, smile shutter and the portrait mode are all useful for portrait shooting. In-camera post processing effects like filters, red eye reduction and face retouching are also available.

This compact's weakest point is shooting fast moving objects, the zoom lens moves quickly but the focus and shutter are frustratingly slow. The lens quite often doesn't focus and there is noticeable lag where you are left unsure whether the picture has been taken. Image stabilisation is available but not overly effective.

Low light is handled well by this camera with iso speeds of up to 1600 and a 3200 mode at 3 megapixels. Noise and focus perform well up to around 400 where you start to get noticeable image degradation.

Battery life is decent for the size, taking over 200 photos and shooting some video. The battery is charged in-camera so a spare is not convenient to charge. Its spring-loaded usb arm in the base removes the need for usb cables or card readers when retrieving your images. It also allows the camera to be charged through usb, allowing you to leach power from your laptop on the move. An innovative idea inspired by modern compact video recorders but it can be a bit cumbersome and unstable in some situations. The last thing you want to do is damage a usb port on your computer or the sole charging connection on the camera.

A lack of HD video recording functionality is disappointing as this has become almost commonplace in modern cameras. Micro SD cards are also an unconventional choice in modern cameras but does offer more compatibility between mp3 and mobile devices.

Samsung never fail to bring easy to use, stylish cameras to the table and this is no exception. Unfortunately the slow focus, poor macro and lack of HD recording let this model down. Its range of modes make it a good compact to learn fundamental photography skills. The low price is tempting but there are better cameras in this price range available both in terms of image quality and features.