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Samsung SLM Cell Phone Review - Imaging

Alfredo Padilla Published on December 17, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

Resolution (0.88)
To test the Samsung SLM camera's resolution we take a series of photos of an industry standard Resolution chart and run them through the Imatest software. Imatest produces a score called line widths per pixel height (lw/ph), which is a measure of how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned.
The Samsung SLM scored 444 lw/ph horizontal and 476 lw/ph vertical, which is pretty low. You can see below that the Samsung SLM scored significantly lower on this test than any of our comparison phones. In fact it's one of the worst resolution scores we've seen, especially from a phone with a two-Megapixel camera. You can expect photos taken with the Samsung SLM to have a blurry cast to them.

Cell Phone	Samsung SLM	Razr2 V8	LG Venus
Score	0.88	4.29	2.70
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	444/476	982/982	779.9/740.1
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	T-Mobile Shadow	Sony Ericsson W580i	Helio Fin
Score	2.28	6.35	2.77
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	741/746	1195/960	793.4/839.2
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Color (2.15)
To test the quality of the color produced by a phone's camera we take photos of the industry standard GretagMacbeth color chart, which displays 24 different colors. These photos are analyzed by Imatest, which produces the chart below.
This chart compares the captured colors to the original colors, as indicated above. Imatest also produces the chart below, which shows the ideal colors with a square and the actual captured colors with a circle.
You can see by the large number of long lines on this chart that the Samsung SLM did not perform well in our color test. Colors in the blues and reds seem to be significantly under-saturated while yellows and greens seem slightly over-saturated. About the only thing consistent is that almost everything is off. As you can see below the Samsung SLM put up the worst color score amongst our comparison phones, and not by a slim margin. So far we are not impressed by the SLM's camera.

Cell Phone	Samsung SLM	Razr2 V8	LG Venus
Score	2.15	4.41	6.00
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	T-Mobile Shadow	Sony Ericsson W580i	Helio Fin
Score	5.61	5.61	5.94
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Noise (1.48)
To test the noise produced by photos from the Samsung SLM we take photos of the GretagMacbeth color chart at four different lighting levels, ranging from very bright to candle light. We then use Imatest to analyze the amount of noise produced at each level. Our final score take both consistency across lighting levels and total noise at each lighting level into account. The Samsung SLM performed pretty well in our noise test, the first good score we've seen in the imaging section. Although the total amount of noise produced at each lighting level wasn't spectacularly low, it wasn't terrible either (by camera phone standards), and it was very consistent across lighting levels. Even at the lowest lighting level, where we typically see a bump in noise, the Samsung SLM stayed pretty consistent. Of course "good" is relative. The Samsung SLM performed well for a cell phone camera, but as you can see below even this performance doesn't allow them to get up above a score of 2. The simple fact is that all cell phone cameras produce a lot of noise, even the best of them.

Cell Phone	Score
Samsung SLM	1.48
Razr2 V8	0.91
LG Venus	0.94
T-Mobile Shadow	1.23
Sony Ericsson W580i	0.36
Helio Fin	1.46

Live Preview (5.0)
The Samsung SLM offers users several options for the live preview, from a ratio view that only uses part of the screen but gives you a good idea of the actual ratio of the capture area to a full screen view. You also have the option to show or hid on screen icons and you can view or hide grid lines so you can better line up your shot. You can cycle through all of these options by hitting the pound button.

In terms of what you actually see on the screen the Samsung SLM's display seems a little pixelated, which isn't surprising given the low, 176 x 220 resolution. We also saw some blurring when panning. Color wasn't very accurate, but then the color of the final photos isn't very accurate either. The live preview gives you a good idea of what the photo is going to look like, but we wished it looked closer to the final capture.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (5.41)
We were able to go from phone closed to a new photo on the Samsung SLM in 3.7 seconds. This is about average, you can see below that the Samsung SLM falls right around the middle of our range of comparison phones.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Samsung SLM	3.7	5.41
Razr2 V8	4.56	4.39
LG Venus	4.57	4.38
T-Mobile Shadow	3.2	6.25
Sony Ericsson W580i	2.7	7.41
Helio Fin	6.2	3.23

Shot to Shot Time (6.30)
This test measures how quickly you can take a series of photos. This is important if you want to capture an action shot. When possible we use a burst mode for this test, and the Samsung SLM does have one. We were able to capture five photos in 2.4 seconds, which works out to 2.1 frames per second (fps), a very good score. Unfortunately the photos taken using burst mode are extremely small at 320 x 240, so although you'll be able to capture an action shot the photos are going to be pretty low quality. If you try to take a series of photos manually the Samsung SLM's speed plummets to 0.33 FPS.

Cell Phone	FPS	Score
Samsung SLM	2.1	6.30
Razr2 V8	0.58	1.74
LG Venus	0.36	1.08
T-Mobile Shadow	1.76	5.28
Sony Ericsson W580i	2.7	8.10
Helio Fin	0.19	0.57

Shutter to Shot Time (6.67)
This test measures how long it takes the phone to actually capture a photo once you've pressed the capture button. The Samsung SLM took 0.3 seconds, which is a pretty good time. You can see below that only the W580i performed better in this test than the SLM. This quick shutter to shot time means you won't have to hope your subject stays still for a long time.

Cell Phone	Time (sec)	Score
Samsung SLM	0.3	6.67
Razr2 V8	0.39	5.13
LG Venus	0.82	2.44
T-Mobile Shadow	0.9	2.22
Sony Ericsson W580i	0.12	16.67
Helio Fin	0.6	3.33

Interface (6.0)
The Samsung SLM's camera interface is pretty good. You have a selection of viewfinder types, as we discussed above, with the option to show or hide a variety of on screen icons that give you information about photo size, white balance mode, and others. When you go into the menu system it's a tabbed interface that drops down from the top of the screen and is very camera-like. The menus don't obscure the viewfinder completely either, so you can see what effect a change in settings will have. The left soft key brings up this menu while the right soft key takes you to the photo gallery. Overall, it's clean, simple and easy to use.

Photo Album Software Internal (3.0)
The photo album software on the Samsung SLM is basically just part of the "my stuff" file browser. Images are shown in a list, with a small thumbnail on the left and the name on the right. You can sort images by date, type, name or size and you can also move them about into other folders or create new ones for them. What you can't do is create a slide show, which is a shame.

Manual Control (0.0)
The Samsung SLM doesn't offer you any manual controls when taking photos.

Zoom (0.0)
The Samsung SLM does have a digital zoom, but this is not available at the highest capture resolution. Given that all a digital zoom does is resize and crop the image the largest resolution is exactly where you want to use it, as such we won't be awarding any points to the Samsung SLM in this section.

Focus (0.0)
Like most camera phones the Samsung SLM has a fixed focus lens, which means what you see on the viewfinder is what you're going to get. We don't award points for fixed focus lenses.

Flash (0.0)
The Samsung SLM does not have a flash.

Metering (0.0)
The Samsung SLM doesn't have any metering options, not even a manual brightness setting as most phones have.

White Balance (2.0)
The Samsung SLM offers you five presets for white balance, including daylight, cloudy, incandescent and fluorescent.

Image Handling (8.0)
Belaying it's general lack of imaging features the Samsung SLM actually has some pretty decent image handling features. You can apply an effect to a photo like black and white or adjust brightness, color and contrast. You can also resize, rotate, flip or crop photos. These are more options than the vast majority of phones offer, and we're glad to see them. Given that the Samsung SLM doesn't take particularly good photos you'll probably want to take advantage of some of these options before you show them to anyone.

Video

Overall Video Score (4.0)
The quality of the video produced by the Samsung SLM isn't terrible, but we've seen much better. The first problem is that video is only captured at 176 x 144, which is pretty low. When we looked at captured video on a computer screen it looked fine at this small size, and it should look fine on a cell phone too. When we enlarged it at all, however, it started to get pretty blurry. We didn't see a terrible amount of pixelation or artifacts, but when you go full screen it gets very, very fuzzy. Color fidelity is pretty decent, though.

Video Resolution (2.23)
To test the resolution of video produced by the Samsung SLM we take video of the same industry standard resolution chart we use for still photos. We then take frames from this video and use Imatest to produce a line widths per pixel height (lw/ph) score, which judges how many alternating black and white lines can be discerned. The Samsung SLM scored 155 lw/ph horizontal and 144 lw/ph vertical. This is a pretty low score, although not as bad, comparatively, as the Samsung SLM's still resolution score. It's still the lowest score amongst our comparison phones, though.

Cell Phone	lw/ph horizontal/vertical	Score
Samsung SLM	155/144	2.23
Razr2 V8	168/217	3.65
LG Venus	237/247	5.85
T-Mobile Shadow	155/168	2.59
Sony Ericsson W580i	122/108	1.32
Helio Fin	214.1/217.7	4.66

Video Compression (4.0)
The Samsung SLM allows you to shoot video in both Mpeg-4 and 3GP formats. It's nice to have choices, although the quality of the Samsung SLM's video means this choice is less important. If you're running out of storage and want a more efficient capture format though, it's nice to be able to switch to 3GP.

Interface (4.0)
The Samsung SLM's camcorder interface is very similar to that of the camera, with the exception that you don't have as many options for the viewfinder. You're basically stuck with just using about half the screen as a viewfinder. The menu system is just as good and easy to use, however, with a very camera-like interface.

Manual Control (0.0)
The Samsung SLM doesn't support any manual settings for video capture.

Zoom (1.0)
The Samsung SLM offers a digital zoom up to 3x for video capture. Of course all digital zoom does is resize and crop what you're capturing and the fact that the video you capture on the SLM is already pretty small makes this of very limited utility.

Editing (0.0)
The Samsung SLM doesn't offer any editing options for videos.

Modes (4.0)
The Samsung SLM offers a pre-set for MMS video capture as well as several white balance options. Like the stills camera there are no metering options available.

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