Samsung Galaxy Camera Price, Specs, Release Date, In The Flesh Photos : Has 16 MegaPixel Camera with 21 Times Optical Zoom, 23 mm Lens!

Samsung Galaxy Camera, announced at IFA 2012 earlier this week, could have totally given Nokia 808 PureView a big run for the 'best cameraphone in the world' crown. But the thing is, despite running a full-fledged smartphone operating system and even having Contacts and Messaging applications, it lacks basic GSM phone functionality.

Not that it should have had that. But considering its stellar innards and the fact that it's almost there, Samsung Galaxy Camera with its 4.8-inch 720p Super Clear LCD display will leave you wondering why the Korean giant - for all of its new found chutzpah - didn't go all out on the device.

Samsung Galaxy Camera features a 16 MegaPixel camera with 23 mm lens, 21x optical zoom, and pop-up Xenon flash. Also, it comes with full HD 1080p 30 frames per second video recorder. (Grabs courtesy of Phone Dog)

Looking at its face with the protruding lens, one would see very little that sets Samsung Galaxy Camera apart from its predecessors.

But flipping the device around and playing with its massive touchscreen, we'll see exactly what makes it special. A true landmark digicam portable media player hybrid, Samsung Galaxy Camera runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box with its 1.4 GHz Quad Core Exynos 4412 CPU, and handles multitasking with 1GB of RAM. Really, even for a current portable media player, such specifications would be top-notch.

Why Samsung left out the earpiece and mouthpiece on the Galaxy Camera still baffles me. I mean, as it is, it's already too much; Why not push it further and just go overboard by making it an actual smartphone?

But who knows? Maybe the follow-up to this will finally allow users to make calls and send text messages. After all, if there's a company that can make that happen these days, it's definitely Samsung. Oh, they might also want to give Samsung Galaxy Camera II (or whatever it will be called) a bigger battery; Li-Ion 1,650 mAh pack powering such a device?! Come on.

No word yet from Samsung Philippines on this hybrid's release date and pricing details in our country. But if they'll be releasing it here, I'm guessing it will be around Yuletide with price tag of roughly Php 27,000.

TechPinas Digital Camera Technical Specs Table (TDGTST)
Name	Samsung Galaxy Camera
Type	Digital Camera Running Android OS with No GSM Voice Communication, Digicam Portable Media Player Hybrid
Price Category	High-End
Dimensions	128.7 x 70.8 x 19.1 mm
Weight	305 grams
Available Colors	White, Black
Operating System	Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
Display	4.8 inches (around 306 ppi pixel density), 720 x 1280 pixels, Super Clear LCD Corning Gorilla Glass capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Processor, GPU, Chipset	1.4 GHz Quad Core Cortex-A9, Mali-400MP GPU, Exynos 4412 Quad
RAM/ROM	1 GB RAM
Camera	16 MegaPixels, 21 times Optical Zoom, 23 mm Lens with autofocus and pop-up Xenon flash, no secondary camera
Video Capture	Full HD 1080p 30 frames per second, 720 x 480 120 frames per second
Audio and Video Playback	MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263/MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
Ports	HDMI, microUSB v2.0, 3.5 mm audio jack
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, EDR, 3G HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps; LTE version available
Network	HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100, 4G Network LTE Optional
Internal Storage	8 GB, expandable via microSD, supports up to 32GB
Sensors	Accelerometer, Digital Compass, Proximity, Gyro
Battery	Li-Ion 1650 mAh
Uptime	TBD
Value-Added Features	Runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Quad Core Processor
Announcement	IFA 2012: August 2012 Philippines: TBA
Availability	Philippines: TBA
Price	TP Guesstimate: Php 26,000 to Php 28,000