Samsung Lumix L201

I'm not a great fan of compact cameras and use a Cannon 35mm digital myself but my wife wanted a small camera thats easy to carry so i bought her the L201 for her birthday.
I compared prices and specs of loads of options and the L201 came out as the best choice on paper, its a new model, high pixel rating, loads of functions and a bargin price at some stores. This last should have rung the alarm bells but with shops trying to sell at any ...
...price at I should have been.
Fact is the L201 will take good pictures but its not as easy as it should be, but the good points first.
The unit is small but has a good weight, which makes it easier to avoid camers shake problems usual with compact cameras, It also has a shake resist system built in, (this is a option rather than a full time function). There are several 'effect' options ,like B/W ,sepia etc ,as well as some simple crop ... more

I'm not a great fan of compact cameras and use a Cannon 35mm digital myself but my wife wanted a small camera thats easy to carry so i bought her the L201 for her birthday.
I compared prices and specs of loads of options and the L201 came out as the best choice on paper, its a new model, high pixel rating, loads of functions and a bargin price at some stores. This last should have rung the alarm bells but with shops trying to sell at any price right now I was not as careful of the price at I should have been.
Fact is the L201 will take good pictures but its not as easy as it should be, but the good points first.
The unit is small but has a good weight, which makes it easier to avoid camers shake problems usual with compact cameras, It also has a shake resist system built in, (this is a option rather than a full time function). There are several 'effect' options ,like B/W ,sepia etc ,as well as some simple crop and enhance functions which are ,as usual , pretty much useless compared to even the simpliest photo enhancing programe on your pc. The 'face recognition' function is good,allowing the cam to focus on up to 9 faces in one photo.Connection to the pc or direct to a printer is childs play via a usb cable which doubles as a charger cable, I assume the camers can be charged via the pc but niether printed manual or the more detailed manual on the CD tells you if it dose.
Taking photos is just a matter of point and press. There is ,as usual , no direct view finder and the 2.5in screen doubles as the view finder, the shutter button dose make a nice 'click' when you take a photo, this makes a suprising difference, some cams are totally silent and you never quite know if you have taken a shot or not. Movies are are just as easy and a 4g mem card will give you a massive 2hr video space.

Unfortunatly there is quite a lot to say on the down side of this camera.
It comes with no mem card or carry case, the printed manual is a complete joke, it dose not even tell you how to charge the camera or load a mem card let alone download to a pc. The CD manual is better but still disjointed and missing vital info for a first time user of this type of camera. Most of the manual is taken up with info about taking movies! great as a second option for the unit but it IS a stills cam first and formost, if you want movies there are many better video cams at about the same price.
The main question is, of course, what are the photos like, well they CAN be good but basicaly, on auto setting, they are not at all good.

The number one problem is they are too sharp, a problem I have since found listed in several L201 reviews in photo mags . Even setting the shapness adjustment to 'min' dose not solve the problem through the camera, Also the colour balance is out,its to 'cold' (too much blue). Both these problems are easilly corrected by fixing the photo on your pc using something like Paint Shop Pro or Photo shop but you shouldent need to do that!
The 10meg's the camera boasts gives very high definition but anything over 8megs really only shows up on photos bigger than 8 by 10 and I cant see many people using this camera for gallery style photos of that size.
Bottom line is, you CAN get good photos from this camera but is should be easier than it is, I paid £80 in Currys which is about half the listed price and I would have been very disapointed with the results if I'd paid the full price.
The attached photo is untouched . 

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