Zooming in on the Samsung Galaxy Camera

The Galaxy Camera is almost like an Android smartphone, except you trade the phone for a hefty 16-megapixel camera. It's somewhat odd, having a camera with a network plan, but there are some great advantages too.First, a few basics. The camera has a 21x optical zoom with lots of shooting modes and options for video, and has 8GB internal memory. (It accepts microSD cards for up to 32GB external memory.) The display is 2.35″ x 4.16″, and the overall size of the camera is just over 5″ wide and nearly 3″ tall.

It also has a built-in speaker and a headphone jack. External controls are at a minimum: a power button, shutter button with a zoom dial, and a button on the side that pops up the flash. Everything else is controlled via the touchscreen. The tablet portion runs Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The camera retails for $549.99 and is available for both Verizon or AT&T, or I've spotted unlocked versions on Amazon at a premium.Now, I'm not a camera expert. For years I used various version of the pocket-sized Canon PowerShot, a fairly basic point-and-shoot that did the job.

Last year I upgraded to a Sony Cyber-shot which let me shoot HD video, but I mostly stick with the automatic settings for taking photos, occasionally switching if I'm taking shots at night or in the snow. The Galaxy Camera has auto settings or manual "expert" settings if you want to control the aperture, exposure, shutter speed, and so on. Or you can use "smart" mode to pick from a number of presets like Landscape, Macro, Waterfall, Action Freeze, Panorama, Silhouette, Sunset, Night, and Fireworks. Most of those adjust the settings to help you capture photos in particular situations — nice, but fairly similar to some of the presets I had on my PowerShot.